This June, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell spoke on the opening panel at the American Antitrust Institute’s invitational “Symposium on Entrepreneurship and Antitrust” in Washington, D.C., before a crowd that included experts on the law, regulators, and advisers to the Department of Justice.
In her remarks, Stacy made the case that the national thinking on antitrust has gone awry since the 1970s, when antitrust shifted away from its longstanding goal of maintaining robust competition to focus instead on efficiency and low prices.
As the AAI noted in its framing of the event, “The AAI’s focus on entrepreneurship and antitrust is motivated by the importance of entrepreneurial activity to economic growth. Recent research documents the slowing pace of entry into the economy by new firms. There are indications that this slowdown in entrepreneurship and the increasing rate of failure that many early-stage firms experience may be linked to growing consolidation…. [entrepreneurial activity is] critical to an economy that revolves around job creation, investment, higher living standards, consumer benefits, and the long-term vibrancy of the economy.”
Stacy spoke for about 20 minutes, and her comments begin around 1:10:00 in the recording below. Earlier on the opening panel were Mike Callicrate, a rancher, family farm advocate, and founder of the Organization for Competitive Markets, and Craig Purser of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, which represents independent beer distributors.
Read more about the symposium at the AAI website.
