Robert Bork
Judge and legal scholar (1927–2012) whose writings—and failed Supreme Court nomination—helped embed consumer-welfare framing in U.S. antitrust interpretation.
*The Antitrust Paradox* argued that many vertical restraints and mergers enhance efficiency; courts increasingly asked whether consumers paid higher prices rather than whether small business survived. Critics tie that shift to rising concentration in some sectors.
Bork embodies how law and economics moved from University of Chicago seminars into judicial doctrine.
Pairings
Read with antitrust, politics-of-antitrust, and market-concentration entries.