Federal Antitrust Policy During the Kennedy-Johnson Years [Hardcover]

By 1968, 200 corporations held over 60 percent of the nation's manufacturing assets and total annual profits. This book is a comprehensive study of the enormous concentration of economic power resulting from the Third Great Merger Movement, during which over 9,400 firms disappeared through merger, increasing from 954 in 1961 to 2,442 in the peak year of 1968. This great merger wave took place during a period of prosperity marked by a rapidly expanding economy, easy money, and a bouyant stock market. The conglomerate firm was the most prominent feature of the Third Great Merger Movement.JAMES R. WILLIAMSON is a retired U.S. Army officer and retired Professor of History and Business, Gwynedd-Mercy College. Presently, he is Adjunct Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Scranton and Adjunct Professor of History and Business at Wilkes University. He coauthoredZebulon Butler: Hero of the Revolutionary Frontier(Greenwood Press, 1995).

Tables and Figures
Preface
Introduction: A Brief History of Antitrust Policy to 1950
The Issue: Business Concentration in the 1950s and 1960s
The Response: The Executive
The Response: The Congress
The Response: The Supreme Court
Conclusions
Epilogue
Notes
Appendix: A: Merger Guidelines, U.S. Department of Justice
Appendix B: Report of the White House Task Force on Antitrust Policy
Appendix C: Report on the Task Force of Productivity and Competition
Appendix D: Directorships of Major U.S. Corporations Tightly Interlocked
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index