[3] W Mark Crain and Thomas D Hopkins, “The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms,” Report for the Office of Advocacy, U.S Small Business Administration, Washington, D.C., RFP No SBAHQ-00-R-0027, October 2001, p [4] W Kip Viscusi, “Safety at Any Price?” Regulation, Fall 2002: 54–63 16.4 Review and Practice Summary This chapter has shown that government intervention in markets takes the form of antitrust action to prevent the abuse of market power and regulations aimed at achieving socially desired objectives that are not or cannot be provided by an unregulated market system We saw that antitrust policy has evolved from a view that big business was bad business to an attempt to assess how the behavior of firms and the structure of markets affect social welfare and the public interest The rule of reason rather than per se illegality guides most antitrust policy today, but because there is considerable debate concerning the appropriate role of government antitrust policy and regulation, application of the rule of reason in specific cases is uneven Prosecution and enforcement of the nation’s antitrust laws has varied over time The rising role of a global economy in the last half of the twentieth century reduced the degree of market power held by domestic firms Policymakers have reconsidered antitrust policy and what types of joint ventures and cooperation among competing firms should be allowed U.S antitrust policy has not been abandoned, but since the early 1980s it has been Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 879