Abstract

In recent years, the economic foundation of antitrust law is increasingly being called into question. The hypothesis that antitrust law seeks to promote consumer welfare has historically been extremely popular but in recent years has come under attack. In part, this is due to the fact that neither the law, nor the decisions of competition law enforcers, can be fully explained as consistent with a strict consumer welfare standard. Neither do competition laws promote a textbook concept of total economic welfare, neither in their wording, nor in the way they are enforced. Some commentators argue that competition law should protect the competitive process, but this approach lacks a foundation in welfare economics and therefore lacks the ability to make basic trade-offs between desirable goals. This article puts forward an alternative hypothesis, which focuses on the sunk, relationship-specific investments made by market participants. We propose that an important, and overlooked, role of competition law is to protect trading partners from the threat of hold-up, where it is unreasonable for the parties to use conventional mechanisms to protect those sunk investments themselves. This approach can help to explain features of competition law and law enforcement that cannot be explained by the traditional consumer welfare or total welfare frameworks. We suggest that this approach offers promise as providing a consistent, comprehensive, economic foundation for competition law.

中文翻译：

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保护沉没投资是反垄断法的经济理由吗？

摘要

近年来，反垄断法的经济基础越来越受到质疑。反垄断法旨在促进消费者福利的假设历来非常流行，但近年来受到攻击。部分原因是，无论是法律还是竞争执法者的决定，都不能完全解释为符合严格的消费者福利标准。无论是在措辞上还是在执行方式上，竞争法都没有宣扬总经济福利的教科书式概念。一些评论家认为竞争法应该保护竞争过程，但这种方法缺乏福利经济学的基础，因此缺乏在理想目标之间进行基本权衡的能力。这篇文章提出了一个替代假设，它侧重于市场参与者进行的沉没的、特定于关系的投资。我们建议，竞争法的一个重要但被忽视的作用是保护贸易伙伴免受劫持的威胁，在这种情况下，当事方使用传统机制来保护沉没投资本身是不合理的。这种方法有助于解释传统消费者福利或总福利框架无法解释的竞争法和执法特征。我们建议这种方法有望为竞争法提供一致、全面的经济基础。各方使用传统机制来保护沉没投资本身是不合理的。这种方法有助于解释传统消费者福利或总福利框架无法解释的竞争法和执法特征。我们建议这种方法有望为竞争法提供一致、全面的经济基础。各方使用传统机制来保护沉没投资本身是不合理的。这种方法有助于解释传统消费者福利或总福利框架无法解释的竞争法和执法特征。我们建议这种方法有望为竞争法提供一致、全面的经济基础。