ABSTRACT
The organisation of modem market economies is based on the principle of competition. Competition is the outcome of decentralized decision-making processes which in turn are the result of the legal guarantee of private property and the freedom of contract. However, as already noted by Adam Smith, businessmen do not always pursue their profit motive with competitive strategies; it can also be profitable for them to restrict competition. At least since the introduction of the Sherman Act in the US at the end of the last century, the view has spread that government should devise special policies to prevent private firms from choosing anti-competitive profitseeking strategies. Such policies have come to be termed antitrust, anti-monopoly or simply competition policy. Here, I shall choose the latter term, because the respective policies are not only directed against trusts or monopolies, but regulate all forms of anti-competitive conduct. The term competition policy might, however, be too broad. In a wider sense, it can be understood to comprise all sorts of policies by which governments influence the competitive environment of firms. As such, it also covers the regulation/deregulation of certain industries or policies in the field of international trade. In the following, competition policy is used in the narrow sense as a short-cut term for 'policies against private restraints of competition'.
