Bringing Antitrust’s Economic and Institutional Limits to the FTC’s Consumer Protection Authority

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Geoffrey Manne, May 13, 2014

In 1914 Congress gave the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sweeping jurisdiction and broad powers to enforce flexible rules to ensure that it would have the ability to serve as the regulator of trade and business that Congress intended it be. Much, perhaps even the great majority, of what the FTC does is uncontroversial and is widely supported, even by critics of the regulatory state. However, both Congre