George Ward Stocking Sr. (September 24, 1892 – June 7, 1975) was an American economist, who was one of the pioneers of industrial organization and an early writer on international cartels.
During 1933-1943 he held several positions with the federal government, including the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he advised Attorney General Thurman Arnold.
Stocking's first book was an empirical study of competition in the petroleum industry, in which he had worked as a "roughneck" in the oil fields of western Texas.
While teaching at the University of Texas, Stocking had his first taste of public service as a member of the Consumer Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in the mid-1930s, where he observed the destructive effects of the brief U.S. legalization of industrial cartels.
A second issue addressed by Stocking was the extent to which concepts of "workable competition" and the "rule of reason" should be employed in antitrust enforcement.