Do We Need Government Intervention in the Form of Competition Policy?

The best known passage in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (1776) says: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices,". He also thought that "It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice." Nowadays competition authorities seem to think otherwise and, in recent years, decided to introduce tougher regulations against anti-competitive behaviour. …