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The focus of antitrust is competition. For over a century, the mandate of antitrust has been to evaluate aggressive commercial conduct and then judge its purposes and effects to determine whether to permit or forbid such conduct as procompetitive or anticompetitive. In this capacity, like all law, antitrust has evolved over time, responding to new insights and understanding regarding competition and competitive conduct. This symposium in the Antitrust Bulletin, Antitrust as a Multidisciplinary Field, takes stock of this evolution by focusing on new insights from economics and existing insights from the business disciplines for shaping the intellectual foundations of antitrust.

Despite the importance of entrepreneurship to innovation and economic growth, measures of business startups and other indications of entrepreneurial activity remain below historic norms. Consequently, growing interest resides at the intersection of antitrust and entrepreneurship. This special issue of the Antitrust Bulletin examines the nature and importance of entrepreneurship to the economy, the challenges that entrepreneurial activity poses for antitrust policy and analysis, and solutions intended to address those challenges.

An increasing number of antitrust stakeholders have advanced the opinion that enhancing economic efficiency is the most appropriate way to maximize consumer welfare. However, continuing and important questions surround the conclusion that efficiency should be the primary objective and central criterion of competition policy and antitrust law. This two-part special issue of the Antitrust Bulletin examines this debate by focusing on cutting-edge, multidisciplinary thinking, and recent developments concerning economic efficiency and its primacy as an important goal for competition policy and antitrust law.

Mergers may impact price as well as non-price forms of competition in the form of product quality, variety, service, and innovation. This special issue of the Antitrust Bulletin examines the increasing importance of non-price dimensions of competition in merger analysis, the challenges that non-price effects pose for antitrust merger enforcement, and approaches for enhancing the analysis and role of non-price competition in merger enforcement decisions and competition policy responses. This is a critical discussion that informs the debate over the importance and adequacy of the consumer welfare standard, which is the prevailing standard for evaluating the competitive effects of mergers and nonmerger conduct.

Network organization and systems competition challenge competition policy and antitrust law. Networks can be powerful engines of marketing and innovation, but they can also function in ways that raise competition questions and antitrust concerns. Drawing on the marketing literature, the authors explain the nature and competitive behavior of firms operating in and competing through networks. Key questions for understanding and analyzing marketing networks in competition policy and antitrust law are discussed. The article adds marketing insights to the growing dialogue on network forms of business organization and systems competition. It also demonstrates the benefits of including knowledge from marketing and related disciplines in competition policy and antitrust analysis.

Under dual distribution a manufacturer sells through both independent and vertically integrated channels of distribution. The hybrid nature of these arrangements has led to persistent questions in antitrust relating to the use and effects of dual distribution restraints. To date, two schools of antitrust thought have emerged. Recent changes in the law, together with the growing use of dual distribution in practice, have called attention to these questions and the views of the two schools. Addressing both, the relevant literature from business research and practice are gathered and examined. The findings support aspects of each school, but challenge others, especially those that address free riding, in important ways. Together the findings augment extant understanding of dual distribution restraints in antitrust.