How to Think Like an Economist – The Challenge for Antitrust Lawyers. On Property Rights and How to Really Merge Law & Economics in Antitrust Cases

Abstract

My paper points to the structural problems in the area of antitrust lawyers’ education and the necessity to recognize economics as a fundamental domain (and not as auxiliary science) in the application of competition law. Independent specialized antitrust courts should be established, and economic education should be mandatory for judges. Economics is a knowledge-intensive domain, and the acquisition of economic knowledge requires special advanced studies. It is not sufficient for lawyers to occasionally familiarize themselves with economic reports and papers. That is not serious. The appropriate response is to integrate economics in the studies of competition law and to establish independent specialized antitrust courts, which would be able to routinely study and to critically and rationally evaluate the antitrust economic and legal questions. Parallelly, economists should be trained in law and support the teams of lawyers of the regulatory authorities. Economists can help courts devise, refine, and reform economic tests.

On Property Rights and How to Really Merge Law & Economics in Antitrust Cases, first of all, it is easy to cite (important or unimportant) works, but it is harder to think about original legal and economic solutions. In order that antitrust law & economics be at a higher level, one must make (real) learning pay off: a State and big firms should finance it adequately. Furthermore, stealing other lawyers’ or other economists’ work is also very easy. The strongest protection of property rights is fundamental by means of the highest financial rewards to the persons that do an original work or communicate it appropriately to the legal world. What is more, it must be observed that the current economic papers are unreadable for lawyers, as they are based on mathematical models. I propose, therefore, that every paper to be published in an economic journal be constructed in a dual way: there should be part A. A Non-technical Explanation of a Model and part B. A Mathematical Model. The same regards the presentation of economic analyses to the antitrust institutions and courts. Finally, I also postulate that business centers (concentrating big and small businessmen) should be established at every university that deals with an antitrust analysis in order to inform the legal and economic community of the real-world economic operations and to make their analyses much more powerful and utilitarian.

Keywords: antitrust lawyers, law and economics, courts and antitrust, competition law studies