Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: American University professor Jonathan Baker to receive Jerry S. Cohen Award, (May 9, 2016)

By Greg Hammond, J.D.

American University Washington College of Law professor Jonathan B. Baker will receive the Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship at the American Antitrust Institute’s 17th Annual Conference, which will be held on June 16, 2016, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The award is given each year to the best antitrust writing during the prior year, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) announced.

Baker primarily teaches courses concerning antitrust and economic regulation at American University Washington College of Law. His winning article, “Taking the Error out of ‘Error Cost’ Analysis: What’s Wrong with Antitrust’s Right,” 80 Antitrust L.J. 1 (2015), discusses a number of “erroneous assumptions” that antitrust conservatives make about markets and institutions. These assumptions, according to Baker, “systematically overstate the incidence and significance of false positives, understate the incidence and significance of false negatives, and understate the net benefits of various rules by overstating their costs. Collectively, these errors inappropriately tilt the application of a neutral economic tool, decision theory, against antitrust intervention.”

To be selected for the Jerry S. Cohen Award, “submissions should reflect a concern for principles of economic justice, the dispersal of economic power, the maintenance of effective limitations upon economic power or the federal statutes designed to protect society from various forms of anticompetitive activity,” according to AAI. Further, “Submissions should reflect an awareness of the human and social impacts of economic institutions upon individuals, small businesses and other institutions necessary to the maintenance of a just and humane society.”

News: Antitrust