Learning by litigating: An application to antitrust commitments
Journal article: This paper examines the impact of commitment decisions on the efficiency of antitrust enforcement. We discuss the optimal use of commitments considering past rulings as a source of knowledge to better assess future similar antitrust cases. Our framework combines two key effects: the deterrence of the anticompetitive behavior by the different enforcement regimes, and the dynamic perspective through litigation as a source of learning. We show that if the level of penalty is high enough, the antitrust authorities undervalue the dynamic informational benefit of litigation and tend to over-use commitments.
Author(s)
Andreea Cosnita-Langlais, Jean-Philippe Tropeano
Journal
- International Journal of Industrial Organization
Date of publication
- 2022
Keywords JEL
Keywords
- Antitrust
- Commitments
- Deterrence
- Legal learning
URL of the HAL notice
Version
- 1
Volume
- 80