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Takahashi, Iwakazu --- "On the Difference of Methodology in Jurisprudence and Economics – Comment on Künzler" [2012] ELECD 411; in Zimmer, Daniel (ed), "The Goals of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Goals of Competition Law

Editor(s): Zimmer, Daniel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857936608

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: On the Difference of Methodology in Jurisprudence and Economics – Comment on Künzler

Author(s): Takahashi, Iwakazu

Number of pages: 5

Extract:

11. On the difference of methodology
in jurisprudence and economics ­
comment on Künzler
Iwakazu Takahashi*

1 INTRODUCTION

Dr Künzler's chapter1 on the economic content of competition law
reaches a conclusion that I share. He concludes that:

According to the `more economic approach', the function and purpose of
competition law shall no longer be that of ensuring the freedom to compete but
rather the promotion of economic and social welfare.2
[. . .] the underlying hypothesis of the utopian economic approach, that eco-
nomic welfare can only be measured on the scale of `economic efficiency', can
hardly be tenable.3
The role of competition policy should therefore rather consist of upholding
a `regulatory framework' by formulating certain `rules of play' and thereby
ensuring just process or fair play.4

The purpose of competition law and policy (freedom or economic
efficiency) has been a matter of dispute for the past 30 years. The debate
started in the USA in the 1980s and gradually permeated the thinking on
EU competition law in the late 1990s. The discussion of this debate must
first make clear the difference in the methodology between jurisprudence



* Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan.
1 This comment is based on the longer version, the paper `Economic Content
of Competition Law: In Defense of a Pragmatic Approach to Competition Policy'
by A Künzler, presented at the 5th ASCOLA Conference in Bonn.
2 A Künzler, `Economic Content of Competition Law: In Defense of a

Pragmatic ...