Anti-trust law exists to encourage competition in the marketplace and bring better prices and higher quality goods and services to the market. The first law, the Sherman Act, was passed in 1890 to try and prevent the empire building of industrialists during the Gilded Age. Several additional acts followed through the decades with the goal of promoting a competitive marketplace.

General Expectations

The purpose of this research paper is to examine the history of anti-trust law and discuss market concentration in the United States economy. The paper should discuss the following main prompts at a minimum.

• Major anti-trust laws passed and their main points.
  • What are some major historical cases
• How markets become more concentrated (types of mergers)
• How market concentration is measured and the trends in concentration since the 1990s
  • Which markets have concentrated faster and why
• What the consumer welfare standard of anti-trust is and its evolution
  • How does this make big tech (Amazon, Facebook, Twitter harder to regulate)
• What are the implications for employees and consumers when markets become highly concentrated