A Brief History of the FTC’s Bureau of Economics: Reports, Mergers, and Information Regulation

Although there are numerous histories of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), there has been little focus on sub-organizations of the FTC. While this history of one sub-organization, the Bureau of Economics, is a description of the role of economists in antitrust and consumer protection, it also provides an example of an entity that serves an economic staff function for a larger organization run largely by attorneys. That arrangement is not uncommon in the federal government, since many government agencies utilize economists and only one, the Federal Reserve, is run by economists. Despite this organizational structure, economists at the FTC have had a significant role since its 1914 founding, and in the most recent 40 years, those economists have produced work that not only made the FTC a more efficient and effective regulator, but also enhanced the knowledge of economists generally in areas of FTC specialty. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA) 2015