Herbert Hovenkamp

Herbert Hovenkamp
  • James G. Dinan University Professor
  • Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics
  • Professor of Law

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    600 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
    3730 Walnut Street
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: Antitrust Law; Legal and Business History

Links: CV

Overview

Herbert Hovenkamp has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 21st Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor, effective July 2.

The announcement was made today by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price.

A world-renowned scholar of antitrust law and policy, Hovenkamp will be the James G. Dinan University Professor, with joint faculty appointments in the Law School and in the Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School.

“Herb Hovenkamp is an exceptionally influential scholar of international renown who brings wide-ranging expertise at the intersection of law and business to Penn,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “He is a prolific highly-cited author whose work informs key decisions in antitrust law and policy. His unique command of complex issues at the global interaction of law, business, patents and innovation will bolster Penn’s acknowledged leadership in these areas, presenting wonderful new opportunities to foster collaboration and integrate knowledge across disciplines. Professor Hovenkamp epitomizes the uniquely collaborative and multidisciplinary skill sets of our PIK professors, and we are thrilled he is joining Penn’s eminent faculty.”

Called “the dean of American antitrust law” by The New York Times in 2011, Hovenkamp received the John Sherman Award from the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in 2008, awarded a few times a decade for “outstanding achievement in antitrust law, contributing to the protection of American consumers and to the preservation of economic liberty.”  He is currently Ben and Dorothy Willie Professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he has taught since 1986, and coauthor of the landmark 21-volume Antitrust Law, which has been cited more than 50 times by the Supreme Court and more than 1,000 times by federal courts.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hovenkamp has been a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies at Harvard Law School, Presidential Lecturer at the University of Iowa and the recipient of the University of Iowa Collegiate Teaching Award. Among more than a hundred articles and a dozen books, his Enterprise and American Law, 1836-1937 (Harvard University Press, 1991) received the Littleton-Griswold Prize of the American Historical Association, and Science and Religion in America, 1800-1860 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978) received the Choice Award. He earned a J.D., Ph.D. in American Civilization and M.A. in American literature from the University of Texas following a B.A. from Calvin College and taught from 1980 to 1985 at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

“Herb Hovenkamp will be a tremendous catalyst for our eminence in antitrust and patent law,” Price said. “He is not only a globally acclaimed scholar but also a renowned teacher and mentor. I am confident that his expertise will have a major impact on our students in law, in business and across the University.”

The Penn Integrates Knowledge program was launched by Gutmann in 2005 as a University-wide initiative to recruit exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines and who are appointed in at least two schools at Penn.

The James G. Dinan University Professorship is the gift of James G. Dinan, a 1981 graduate of the Wharton School of the University.  Dinan founded York Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm in September 1991 and is the chairman, the chief executive officer and a managing Partner of the firm. He is a University trustee and a member of the Wharton Board of Overseers.

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Research

Teaching

Current Courses (Fall 2024)

  • LAW6070 - Antitrust (hovenkamp)

    LAW6070001

  • LAW9090 - Law Seminar

    Please consult the Course Finder.

    LAW9090001

All Courses

  • LAW5040 - Torts

  • LAW6100 - Antitrust: Mergers, IP & VR

    Antitrust: Mergers, IP & VR

  • LAW6190 - ESG

    ESG: Public Corp ESG Initiatives

  • LAW9090 - Law Seminar

    Please consult the Course Finder.

  • LAW9990 - Independent Study Project

    Independent Study Project

  • LGST2050 - Antitrust and Big Tech

    This course considers the role of antitrust law in facilitating and policing the business strategies of dominant firms and joint enterprises. We will examine technology-driven firms such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Uber, and Microsoft, as well as disrupted industries such as the digital music industry. In each case, we will consider how firms adapted their strategies to rapidly changing technological environments and ask whether antitrust law served to promote or to hinder innovation and competitive development. Course coverage will range over all portions of the business economy in which competition and innovation are important, but emphasizing markets that have a significant technological component. We will also study a series of classic business cases in technology rich markets, including the American Can Company, Standard Oil, and DuPont. We will pay special attention to the role of intellectual property rights in fostering both individual and collaborative innovation.

  • LGST2210 - Const Law & Free Enterpr

    The course explores the fundamentals of U.S. constitutional doctrine and adjudication, with an emphasis on commercial and business issues and implications of constitutional law. The course starts by considering the Constitution and the structure and relationship of the governmental entities it establishes and upon which it depends. Special attention is given to the role of the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, in interpreting and applying constitutional principles. From this foundation, the course moves on to examine in detail the major economic and business implications of constitutional law in different eras of the nation's history. A core theme is how historical events and changing notions of public policy have affected and been affected by the evolution of constitutional doctrine.

  • LGST8050 - Antitrust and Big Tech

    This course considers the role of antitrust law in facilitating and policing the business strategies of dominant firms and joint enterprises. We will examine technology-driven firms such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Uber, and Microsoft, as well as disrupted industries such as the digital music industry. In each case, we will consider how firms adapted their strategies to rapidly changing technological environments and ask whether antitrust law served to promote or to hinder innovation and competitive development. Course coverage will range over all portions of the business economy in which competition and innovation are important, but emphasizing markets that have a significant technological component. We will also study a series of classic business cases in technology rich markets, including the American Can Company, Standard Oil, and DuPont. We will pay special attention to the role of intellectual property rights in fostering both individual and collaborative innovation.

  • MKTG2600 - Antitrust and Big Tech

    This course considers the role of antitrust law in facilitating and policing the business strategies of dominant firms and joint enterprises. We will examine technology-driven firms such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Uber, and Microsoft, as well as disrupted industries such as the digital music industry. In each case, we will consider how firms adapted their strategies to rapidly changing technological environments and ask whether antitrust law served to promote or to hinder innovation and competitive development. Course coverage will range over all portions of the business economy in which competition and innovation are important, but emphasizing markets that have a significant technological component. We will also study a series of classic business cases in technology rich markets, including the American Can Company, Standard Oil, and DuPont. We will pay special attention to the role of intellectual property rights in fostering both individual and collaborative innovation.

  • MKTG7600 - Antitrust and Big Tech

    This course considers the role of antitrust law in facilitating and policing the business strategies of dominant firms and joint enterprises. We will examine technology-driven firms such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Uber, and Microsoft, as well as disrupted industries such as the digital music industry. In each case, we will consider how firms adapted their strategies to rapidly changing technological environments and ask whether antitrust law served to promote or to hinder innovation and competitive development. Course coverage will range over all portions of the business economy in which competition and innovation are important, but emphasizing markets that have a significant technological component. We will also study a series of classic business cases in technology rich markets, including the American Can Company, Standard Oil, and DuPont. We will pay special attention to the role of intellectual property rights in fostering both individual and collaborative innovation.

In the News

Knowledge at Wharton

Activity

Latest Research

Herbert Hovenkamp (2018), Whatever Did Happen to the Antitrust Movement?, __ Notre Dame L.Rev. (2018), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3097452, .
All Research

In the News

Why Breakups Aren’t the Best Way to Curb Tech Monopolies

Antitrust regulators should prioritize injunctions over breaking up Big Tech companies to boost market competition, according to Wharton’s Herbert Hovenkamp.…Read More

Knowledge at Wharton - 2/27/2024
All News

Wharton Magazine

Why Antitrust Law Should Protect Consumers First

The “dean of American antitrust law” weighs in on building better policy and the fallacy of targeting big business in defense of the little guy.

Wharton Magazine - 04/10/2018