Anti-Trust Laws Against Monopolies

A. There are 4 main pieces of legislation that are collectively known as the Anti-trust laws. They are the Sherman Antitrust Act, The Federal Trade commission Act, The Clayton Antitrust Act and the Celler-Kefauver Act. The Sherman Antitrust Act is legislation enacted to protect Americans against monopolies. It makes it illegal to make contracts or conspire to restrict trade or commerce. It also outlaws monopolies. The Federal Trade Commission Act established the Federal Trade Commission and set up how it would be run, with a group of 5 people that did not follow party lines that would be chosen for 7 years terms and would make sure no antitrust laws were being broken. The Clayton Antitrust Law closed a lot of the loopholes that the
To protect consumers there are specific regulations put into effect. In an Oligopoly market structure there is a small number of sellers. What one seller does, in terms of cost structure or product for example, can greatly affect the other firms in the oligopoly. Because of these, sometimes the sellers will join together to try and set certain price points or collude with each other. When this happens naturally, it is ok but regulations have been set forth that companies cannot contact each other about these. Regulations are intended to protect the consumer from the large firms working together to drive prices higher and higher. A great example of an Oligopoly is the Mobile phone market. In a monopoly, rather than multiple companies owning the market, only one company owns the market. If left unchecked this would allow that company to inflate the price of their goods. Some examples of this would be the gas company. Since you have to go with only one choice for services if left unregulated they could set the price as high as they wanted since they have no competition. Regulations on monopolies protect
Social Regulation is intended to protect the population along socially acceptable. They focus more on how the goods are made, employment practices, and how safe the goods are for both consumers and the environment. All market structures and most companies have to take these into account so societal regulations are much broader reaching than industrial regulations. Social regulations can lead to higher prices and operating costs, but in many cases the benefits to society outweighs the cost. Social regulations can defiantly increase economic efficiency for companies. It leads to better and safer working conditions, safer products, and helps to avoid costly litigation for