IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/pseptp/halshs-01886577.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How procedures shape substance: institutional design and antitrust evidentiary standards

Author

Listed:
  • Andreea Cosnita-Langlais

    (EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)

  • Jean-Philippe Tropeano

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This paper studies the relative impact of public and private competition law enforcement on the optimal evidence threshold for antitrust liability with asymmetric information on the true type of the defendant. We also determine how to set monetary transfers (award to plaintiff and payment by defendant) in complement to the optimal standard of evidence. We obtain that stronger public enforcement always leads to a lower optimal standard of evidence. This may only enhance welfare if the information available is good enough.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreea Cosnita-Langlais & Jean-Philippe Tropeano, 2018. "How procedures shape substance: institutional design and antitrust evidentiary standards," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-01886577, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-01886577
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-018-9574-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Demougin, Dominique & Fluet, Claude, 2006. "Preponderance of evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 963-976, May.
    2. Hüschelrath, Kai & Peyer, Sebastian, 2013. "Public and private enforcement of competition law: A differentiated approach," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-029, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Gary S. Becker & George J. Stigler, 1974. "Law Enforcement, Malfeasance, and Compensation of Enforcers," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, January.
    4. Kaplow, Louis, 2017. "Optimal design of private litigation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 64-73.
    5. Block, Michael Kent & Nold, Frederick Carl, 1981. "The Deterrent Effect of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(3), pages 429-445, June.
    6. Besanko, David & Spulber, Daniel F, 1990. "Are Treble Damages Neutral? Sequential Equilibrium and Private Antitrust Enforcement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 870-887, September.
    7. Sylvain Bourjade & Patrick Rey & Paul Seabright, 2009. "Private Antitrust Enforcement In The Presence Of Pre‐Trial Bargaining," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 372-409, September.
    8. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Yeon-Koo Che, 1991. "Decoupling Liability: Optimal Incentives for Care and Litigation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(4), pages 562-570, Winter.
    9. Kaplow, Louis & Shavell, Steven, 1994. "Accuracy in the Determination of Liability," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 1-15, April.
    10. Campos, Sergio J. & Cotton, Christopher S. & Li, Cheng, 2015. "Deterrence effects under Twombly: On the costs of increasing pleading standards in litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 61-71.
    11. Shavell, Steven, 1997. "The Fundamental Divergence between the Private and the Social Motive to Use the Legal System," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 575-612, June.
    12. Albert Choi & Chris William Sanchirico, 2004. "Should Plaintiffs Win What Defendants Lose? Litigation Stakes, Litigation Effort, and the Benefits of Decoupling," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 323-354, June.
    13. Salant, Stephen W, 1987. "Treble Damage Awards in Private Lawsuits for Price Fixing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(6), pages 1326-1336, December.
    14. Kai Huschelrath & Sebastian Peyer, 2013. "Public and Private Enforcement of Competition Law A Differentiated Approach," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-05, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    15. Daniel L. Rubinfeld & David E.M. Sappington, 1987. "Efficient Awards and Standards of Proof in Judicial Proceedings," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(2), pages 308-315, Summer.
    16. Hugh C. Briggs III & Kathleen D. Huryn & Mark E. McBride, 1996. "Treble Damages and the Incentive to Sue and Settle," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(4), pages 770-786, Winter.
    17. Louis Kaplow, 2011. "On the Optimal Burden of Proof," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1104-1140.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alain Marciano & Giovanni Ramello & Hans-Bernd Schaefer, 2020. "Foreword, special issue: economic analysis of litigations 2," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 1-5, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McAfee, R. Preston & Mialon, Hugo M. & Mialon, Sue H., 2008. "Private v. public antitrust enforcement: A strategic analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1863-1875, October.
    2. Sylvain Bourjade & Patrick Rey & Paul Seabright, 2009. "Private Antitrust Enforcement In The Presence Of Pre‐Trial Bargaining," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 372-409, September.
    3. Andreea Cosnita-Langlais & Jean-Philippe Tropeano, 2014. "Institutional Design and Antitrust Evidentiary Standards," Post-Print hal-01668447, HAL.
    4. Chulyoung Kim, 2018. "Judge’s gate-keeping power and deterrence of negligent acts: an economic analysis of Twombly and Iqbal," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 39-66, August.
    5. Marie Obidzinski & Yves Oytana, 2020. "Presumption of Innocence and Deterrence," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 176(2), pages 377-412.
    6. Schwartz, Warren F. & Wickelgren, Abraham L., 2011. "Optimal antitrust enforcement: Competitor suits, entry, and post-entry competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 967-972.
    7. Joseph E. Harrington, 2005. "Optimal Cartel Pricing In The Presence Of An Antitrust Authority," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(1), pages 145-169, February.
    8. Schinkel, M.P. & Tuinstra, J. & Rueggeberg, J., 2003. "Illinois walls," Research Memorandum 012, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    9. Claudio Calcagno, 2012. "Stand-alone private antitrust damages: (how) should competition authorities react?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 365-389, October.
    10. Maarten Pieter Schinkel & Jan Tuinstra & Jakob Rüggeberg, 2008. "Illinois Walls: how barring indirect purchaser suits facilitates collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 683-698, September.
    11. Philip Bond, 2004. "Optimal plaintiff incentives when courts are imperfect," 2004 Meeting Papers 723, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Francesco Parisi & Ram Singh, 2024. "Decisiveness, Correctness and Accuracy in Criminal Adjudication," Working papers 350, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    13. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 2007. "The Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 403-454, Elsevier.
    14. Katsoulacos, Yannis & Motchenkova, Evgenia & Ulph, David, 2020. "Combining cartel penalties and private damage actions: The impact on cartel prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    15. Kaplow, Louis, 2017. "Optimal design of private litigation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 64-73.
    16. Matteo Rizzolli & Margherita Saraceno, 2013. "Better that ten guilty persons escape: punishment costs explain the standard of evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 395-411, June.
    17. Fluet, Claude, 2010. "Liability rules under evidentiary uncertainty," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 1-9, March.
    18. Demougin, Dominique & Fluet, Claude, 2006. "Preponderance of evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 963-976, May.
    19. Tim Reuter, 2012. "Private antitrust enforcement revisited: The role of private incentives to report evidence to the antitrust authority," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2012-04, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    20. Schinkel, Maarten Pieter & Tuinstra, Jan, 2006. "Imperfect competition law enforcement," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1267-1297, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Antitrust; Public and private enforcement; Evidence; Threshold Decoupling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-01886577. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.