Economics in antitrust enforcement and the private benefit of scholarly commentators

Economics in antitrust enforcement and the private benefit of scholarly commentators

By Jan Broulík (TILEC)

Abstract:     Academic commentators maintain advocating more economics in antitrust enforcement thanit would be optimal from the societal point of view. It has been proposed that this advocacyarises from the private benefit that the commentators obtain from the enforcement use of economics. This article examines the plausibility of this proposition. It compiles the available data on the size of business and emplyoment opportunities for antitrust practitioners to showthat there is a significant private benefit associated with the enforcement use of economics.Because the boundary between antitrust practice and academia is permeable, this private benefits capable of distorting the scholarly commentary. Literature on an analogous issue advances that such distortions of the academic discourse arising from practice-related benefits enjoyed by academic commentators are not rare. Additional incentives come from big businesses that benefit from the excessive use of economics and, therefore, reward commentary that advocates it. The proposition therefore appears to be reasonably plausible.

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