Should We Believe in the Reassuring Nature of the Chicagoan Notion of Competition Law?

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Mariateresa Maggiolino, Bocconi University asks Should We Believe in the Reassuring Nature of the Chicagoan Notion of Competition Law?

ABSTRACT: If we wonder about the reasons why current antitrust scholars would like to resist the new regulatory approach to competition law, two lines of arguments arise – that concerning the risk of making mistakes because of enforcers’ ignorance, and that concerning the risk of making mistakes because of enforcers’ permeability to values and political ideas. Limiting enforcers’ ignorance is always appreaciable, especially because – in the end – this limitation amounts to the request of a good division of work between antitrust enforcers and regulators. Differently, the ease with which Chicagoan antitrust law is deemed to be neutral and, hence, preferable to any form of regulation is questionable. Chicagoan antitrust law is technical in its operations, but not in its premises and results and this, I believe, should be taken into account anytime we choose whether to like or dislike the emerging regulatory approach towards competition law.