Relaxing antitrust during economic downturns: A real options analysis of Appalachian Coals and the failing firm defense

As antitrust law enters its second century, it re-encounters problems that were prominent during the beginning of its first century. This essay shows that many of these old question can be understood more deeply by appeal to finance theory. Antitrust's first century was marked by the growing sophistication of the economic underpinnings of antitrust law, starting, first, with the gradual acceptance of the neoclassical model and more recently, the application of game theory and information theory.