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Judge Robert Bork holds two opposing attitudes towards perfect competition. It is a highly useful economic model for illustrating allocative efficiency, but it is a defective policy model because it deliberately omits productive efficiency. He reconciles these attitudes by combining perfectly competitive allocative efficiency with dynamically competitive productive efficiency in his analysis.However, these two kinds of competition do not readily mix. One is a static equilibrium concept, the other a dynamic disequilibrium concept. One assumes perfect knowledge and the absence of change; the other assumes imperfect knowledge, learning, and continual flux. Each kind of competition is built on assumptions which, if true, would preclude the existence of the other.Bork's policy conclusions require the simultaneous existence of both kinds of competition. If he drops dynamic competition from the analysis, a much more stringent antitrust policy is called for. If he drops static competition, economic theory does not justify even his strictures against mergers and cartels.

Economists' debate over the public utility "regulatory contract" has increasingly focused on three issues created by sunk costs: (i) Protection of sunk capital, (ii) Division of "windfalls" in a world of uncertainty, and (Hi) Mechanisms to control the regulator who administers long‐term agreements. This article uses these three criteria to evaluate regulatory alternatives in the natural gas industry. Facing similar problems under criteria 1 and 2 are: government regulation of pipelines as integrated gas merchants, government regulation of pipelines as gas transporters, and private regulation through competitive contracting. Private contracting, however, offers superior control over the contract administrator, because it removes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's monopoly on contract administration.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-209) and index. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Don Lavoie's published work encompasses a wide range of subjects - socialism, hermeneutics, information technology, and culture. The subjects appear unrelated, but a close examination of his research reveals an underlying unity of thought and an economics at sharp variance with the post World War II mainstream. The contributors to this volume explore the legacy of his scholarship and its implications for economics. Three themes run throughout Don Lavoie's work and are explored in these chapters, the overarching one being the importance of social intelligence to economics. Second, and related to this, was his belief that certain institutions or practices are better at creating social intelligence than others - what might be termed the primacy of liberty or voluntaryism. Thirdly, he asserted that economics is more closely aligned with the humane disciplines than with the physical. As these essays make clear, if the next generation of economists does integrate economics with the humanities, some of the credit must go to Don Lavoie. Students and scholars of economics, methodology, and the humanities more broadly will find this a provocative and enriching collection