I was working as a staff economist at the US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division when I purchased my first copy of Mathematica. We began by using it to construct more complex and realistic oligopoly models for research, but it quickly dawned on us that we could use these models to make enforcement decisions.

In 1995, the Antitrust Division began using the models programmed in Mathematica to predict the competitive effects of mergers. Now competition agencies around the world are building and constructing formal models in Mathematica and doing benefit-cost analysis of enforcement and policy.

Two colleagues in Vanderbilt’s Math Department, Steve Tschantz and Phil Crooke, and I were featured in an advertisement for Mathematica 3.0 in the 1997 Scientific American titled “Trustworthy Models for Antitrust Investigation.”

I continue to use Mathematica in both my consulting and research. Trying to keep up with the new features is a useful way to keep up with new developments.