Herbert Hovenkamp as Antitrust Oracle: Appreciating the Overlooked Contributions of the New Harvard School

My colleague, Herbert Hovenkamp, is almost universally recognized as the most cited and the most authoritative US antitrust scholar. Among his many honors, his status as the senior author of the authoritative Areeda and Hovenkamp treatise makes him the unquestioned leader of the New Harvard School, which has long served as the bellwether for how courts are likely to resolve emerging issues in modern antitrust doctrine. Unfortunately, its defining tenets and its positions on emerging issues remain surprisingly obscure. My contribution to this festschrift explores the core commitments that distinguish the New Harvard School from other approaches to antitrust. It then explores Hovenkamp’s scholarship on key issues, including tying, the neo-Brandeisian/hipster antitrust movement, and digital platforms. A better understanding of Hovenkamp’s work and the New Harvard School should prove invaluable to anyone wishing to understand antitrust’s likely future.