Public Goods,Predatory Pricing and Mr. Murdoch in the House of Lords

Abstract

This article examines alleged predatory pricing in the newspaper industry which led the House of Lords to amend section 19 of the Competition Bill. In making that amendment, the House invoked a confused argument involving public good, merit good and predatory pricing concepts. This argument is shown to be theoretically suspect. Doubt is cast on whether section 19 will be beneficial to the newspaper or serve the Lords’ merit good objective.