Gerber, David J. --- "Adapting the role of economics in competition law: a developing country dilemma" [2015] ELECD 734; in Gal, S. Michal; Bakhoum, Mor; Drexl, Josef; Fox, M. Eleanor; Gerber, J. David (eds), "The Economic Characteristics of Developing Jurisdictions" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 248

Book Title: The Economic Characteristics of Developing Jurisdictions

Editor(s): Gal, S. Michal; Bakhoum, Mor; Drexl, Josef; Fox, M. Eleanor; Gerber, J. David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783471492

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Adapting the role of economics in competition law: a developing country dilemma

Author(s): Gerber, David J.

Number of pages: 17

Abstract/Description:

Competition law officials and economic policy decision-makers in developing countries often face a dilemma. They are regularly told by foreign advisers that they should adopt a form of competition law that relies on economics to provide the standard for competition law liability, i.e. the norms of the competition law system. An economics-based model (EBM) in which economics plays this role was developed in the United States and many components of it have been adopted in European competition law. This means that the most advanced competition law systems follow such a model to one degree or another, and this produces pressure on developing countries to follow them. Moreover, the accumulated experience in these older systems leads many to believe that all countries should follow this model. The image is usually that decision-makers in the more developed systems have learned lessons from these experiences and that their systems are likely to be the ‘best’ of these lessons. Imagine, however, the disconnect and thus the dilemma for decision-makers in many developing countries. In a small, African country, for example, decision-makers may find the idea of using economics in competition law attractive in the abstract, not least because foreign advisers urge its importance.