Peter Carstensen

Professor Emeritus

Contact

peter.carstensen@wisc.edu
608/263-7416
975 Bascom Mall, 7101 Law Building, Madison, WI, USA, 53706-1399

Education

M.A., Yale University
LL.B., Yale Law School;

Biography

Peter C. Carstensen is a Professor of Law Emeritus. From 1993 to 2002 he served as Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at the UW Law School. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and received his law degree and a master's degree in economics from Yale University. From 1968 to 1973, he was an attorney at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice assigned to the Evaluation Section, where one of his primary areas of work was on questions of relating competition policy and law to regulated industries. He has been a member of the faculty of the UW Law School since 1973. He is a Senior Fellow of the American Antitrust Institute.

His scholarship and teaching have focused on antitrust law and competition policy issues. He has published a number of articles in the field, including a number analyzing aspects of the relationship of antitrust law and regulation. He served as co-editor and primary author of four chapters of the ABA Antitrust Section's monograph, Federal Statutory Exemptions from Antitrust Law (2007) and co-edited Competition Policy and Merger Analysis in Deregulated and Newly Competitive Industries (2008), to which he contributed three chapters. He has also done extensive research on the operation and regulation of markets for agricultural commodities. In 2017, he published Competition Policy and the Control of Buyer Power, which received the Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award for best antitrust book of 2017. The American Antitrust Institute confered on him the 2024 Alfred E. Kahn Award for Antitrust Achievement

His other areas of teaching and scholarly interest are tort law, energy law and insurance law.

Scholarship & Publications

SSRN

Law Repository

Research Interests

Competition law and policy

Activities

Peter Carstensen was a panel participant during Public Workshops on the 2023 Draft Merger Guidelines on Sept. 5, 2023.
Peter Carstensen presented "Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner: A Spotlight on Antitrust in the Protein Industry" during the American Antitrust Institute's Annual Private Antitrust Enforcement Conference on Nov. 11, 2021. Watch the panel discussion.
Peter Carstensen presented "The 'Pickle in the Middle': The Competitive Issues Facing America’s Farmers," a critical overview of antitrust and agriculture laws enacted to protect farmers. The talk was part of the Law, Ethics and Animals Program speaker series at Yale Law School. Watch the presentation.
Peter Carstensen's article, "The Merger Incipiency Doctrine and the Importance of 'Redundant' Competitors" (co-authored with Robert Lande), received the Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award for Best Horizontal Mergers Article of 2018. The award ceremony is part of the American Antitrust Institute's annual conference, held in Washington, D. C. in June.
Peter Carstensen collaborated with Roger McEowen, an expert in agricultural law, on "Ag Antitrust: Is There a Crack in the Wall of the 'Mighty-Mighty' (Illinois) Brick House?" Their post, which appeared in McEowen's Agriculture Law and Taxation Law blog in May, considered the implications of Apple Inc. v. Pepper to farmers and ranchers.
In 2010, the Organization for Competitive Markets presented Peter Carstensen with its John Helmuth Award, the highest award given each year by the organization for service to the organization's goals. The Organization for Competitive Markets works for greater competition in agricultural markets.
Peter Carstensen interviewed with the online journal Agri-Pulse regarding agriculture competition issues, specifically, the Departments of Justice and Agriculture Competition in Agriculture workshop series.
The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) named Peter Carstensen a Senior Fellow in 2009. The AAI's Senior Fellows, appointed to a term of two years, constitute an "inner circle" of advisers and undertake specific projects for the AAI.