Barrett to Lecture on Jackson as Antitrust AAG

From the Jackson List, run by John Q. Barrett, St. Johns Law, we learn of the creation earlier this year by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice of the the Jackson-Nash Address, created “to recognize the contributions of former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson and Nobel Laureate economist John Nash, and to honor the speaker, recognizing and celebrating the role of economics in the mission of the [Antitrust] Division.”

As Professor Barrett explains:

Robert H. Jackson (LC)

Robert H. Jackson headed the Antitrust Division during 1937.  As the Division explained when it announced this new lecture series, Jackson’s leadership set the stage for the expanded role of economics in antitrust, replacing vague legal standards with the “protection of competition” as the goal of antitrust law.  And Dr. John Nash’s research provides Antitrust Division economists with analytic tools necessary to protect competition.  In particular, Division economists commonly rely on Nash’s strategic theory of games and his axiomatic bargaining model to guide investigations and to help evaluate the effects of mergers, monopolization, and collusion.

The next event in this series will take place Thursday, September 20, 2018, at 3:00 p.m. in the Great Hall at the U.S. Department of Justice, The Robert F. Kennedy Building, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. (unfortunately, right when we’re teaching!) The program will consist of

introductory remarks by Department of Justice leadership; [Professor Barrett’s] lecture, “Competition: Robert H. Jackson as Assistant Attorney General—Antitrust (January 21, 1937–March 5, 1938); and an address by Dr. George A. Akerlof, University Professor at Georgetown University.