On the Merits of Antitrust Liability in Regulated Industries

We examine the merits of subjecting an incumbent supplier of regulated services to antitrust review. We show that antitrust review can harm consumers even when the review entails no direct costs of implementation. The harm to consumers arises in part because imperfect antitrust review can crowd out more effective regulatory oversight. More generally, antitrust review can usefully complement regulatory oversight but affects the nature of the optimal regulatory policy.