Is Antitrust Too Complicated for Generalist Judges? The Impact of Economic Complexity & Judicial Training on Appeals
Michael R. Baye
Indiana University - Kelley School of Business - Department of Business Economics & Public Policy
Joshua D. Wright
Federal Trade Commission; George Mason University School of Law
January 27, 2009
Journal of Law and Economics, Forthcoming
George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 09-07
The recent increase in the demand for expert economic analysis in antitrust litigation has improved the welfare of economists; however, the law and economics literature is silent on the effects of economic complexity or judges’ economic training on judicial decision-making. We use a unique data set on antitrust litigation in federal district and administrative courts during 1996-2006 to examine whether economic complexity impacts antitrust decisions, and provide a novel test of the hypothesis that antitrust analysis has become too complex for generalist judges. We also examine the impact of basic economic training by judges. We find that decisions involving the evaluation of complex economic evidence are significantly more likely to be appealed, and decisions of judges trained in basic economics are significantly less likely to be appealed than are decisions by their untrained counterparts. Our analysis supports the hypothesis that some antitrust cases are too complicated for generalist judges.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 39
Keywords: ABA Task Force, battle of the experts, Bork, competition law, Daubert, econometrics, expert witness, FTC, George Mason University Law and Economics Center, Mandel, political economy, Posner, Sherman Act
JEL Classification: A2, A11, A13, A23, B20, K10, K21, K41, L4Accepted Paper Series
Date posted: December 29, 2008 ; Last revised: May 11, 2014
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