Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:46:25.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

REJECTED! ANTITRUST ECONOMISTS AS EXPERT WITNESSES IN THE POST-DAUBERT WORLD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

Nicola Giocoli
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Economists regularly appear as expert witnesses in antitrust litigations. This paper analyzes how their models and methodologies have performed vis-à-vis the standards of relevance and reliability affirmed by the US Supreme Court in Daubert and its progeny. Some explanations for the economists’ troubles when facing a Daubert challenge in antitrust cases are provided.

Type
Symposium: Economists in Court
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 203 - 228
Copyright
© The History of Economics Society 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

University of Pisa, nicola.giocoli@unipi.it. This paper has been presented at the “Economic Expertise in Court” workshop, University of Lausanne, September 2017, and at the “MetaLawEcon” workshop, European University Institute, December 2018. I thank the organizers for their kind invitations and all participants for lively discussions and useful remarks. I also wish to thank Malcolm Coate, Harro Maas, Giovanni Tuzet, and three anonymous referees for their useful suggestions. I am especially grateful to Myles Levin for access to the Daubert Tracker database. The usual disclaimers apply.

References

REFERENCES

Ash, Elliott, Chen, Daniel L., and Naidu, Suresh. 2019. “Ideas Have Consequences: The Impact of Law and Economics on American Justice.” http://elliottash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ash-chen-naidu-2019-03-20.pdf. Accessed January 23, 2020.Google Scholar
Baker, Jonathan, and Bresnahan, Timothy F.. 2008. “Economic Evidence in Antitrust: Defining Markets and Measuring Market Power.” In Buccirossi, P., ed., Handbook of Antitrust Economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–42.Google Scholar
Baker, Jonathan B., and Morse, M. Howard. 2006. Final Report of Economic Evidence Task Force. American Bar Association. www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/antitrust/at-reports/01_c_ii.authcheckdam.pdf. Accessed January 23, 2020.Google Scholar
Baye, Michael, and Wright, Joshua D.. 2011. “Is Antitrust Too Complicated for Generalist Judges? The Impact of Economic Complexity and Judicial Training on Appeals.” Journal of Law and Economics 54 (1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, David. 2008. “Expert Witnesses, Adversarial Bias, and the (Partial) Failure of the Daubert Revolution.” Iowa Law Review 93 (451): 101–137.Google Scholar
Brandts, Jordi, and Potter, Jan. 2018. “Experimental Industrial Organization.” In Corchón, L. C. and Marini, M. A., eds., Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization. Volume II, Applications. Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 453–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronsteen, Peter, and Varma, Asim A.. 2001. “Daubert Rules for Economists.” Antitrust 15: 14–16.Google Scholar
Butler, Henry. 1999. “The Manne Programs in Economics for Federal Judges.” Case Western Reserve Law Review 50: 351–420.Google Scholar
Cavanagh, Edward. 2013. “Antitrust Law and Economic Theory: Finding a Balance.” Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 45: 123–171.Google Scholar
Coate, Malcolm, and Fischer, Jeffrey. 2001. “Can Post-Chicago Economics Survive Daubert?” Akron Law Review 34: 795–852.Google Scholar
Coate, Malcolm, and Fischer, Jeffrey. 2012. “Daubert, Science, and Modern Game Theory: Implications for Merger Analysis.” Supreme Court Economic Review 20 (1): 125–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douven, Igor. 2017. “Abduction.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2017 edition. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/abduction/. Accessed January 23, 2020.Google Scholar
Fisher, Franklin. 1989. “Games Economists Play: A Noncooperative View.” RAND Journal of Economics 20: 113–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Milton. 1953. “The Methodology of Positive Economics.” In Milton Friedman, Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 3–43.Google Scholar
Gavil, Andrew. 2000. “Defining Reliable Forensic Economics in the Post-Daubert/Kumho Tire Era: Case Studies from Antitrust.” Washington & Lee Law Review 57: 831–878.Google Scholar
Gavil, Andrew. 2001. “Daubert Comes of Age.” Antitrust 15: 6.Google Scholar
Giocoli, Nicola. 2013. “Games Judges Don’t Play: Predatory Pricing and Strategic Reasoning in US Antitrust.” Supreme Court Economic Review 21 (1): 271–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giocoli, Nicola. 2015. “Old Lady Charm: Explaining the Persistent Appeal of Chicago Antitrust.” Journal of Economic Methodology 22 (1): 96–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Michael D. 1992. “Expert Witnesses and Sufficiency of Evidence in Toxic Substances Litigation: The Legacy of Agent Orange and Bendectin Litigation.” Northwestern University Law Review 86: 643–699.Google Scholar
Haack, Susan. 2005. “Trial and Error: The Supreme Court’s Philosophy of Science.” Supplement, American Journal of Public Health 1, 95 (S1): S66–S73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haack, Susan. 2015. “The Expert Witness: Lessons from the U.S. Experience.” Humana.Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies 28: 39–70.Google Scholar
Helland, Eric, and Klick, Jonathan. 2012. “Does Anyone Get Stopped at the Gate? An Empirical Assessment of the Daubert Trilogy in the States.” Supreme Court Economic Review 20 (1): 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. 1966. Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Holt, Charles A. 1995. “Industrial Organization: A Survey of Laboratory Research.” In Kagel, J. and Roth, A., eds., Handbook of Experimental Economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 349–443.Google Scholar
Hovenkamp, Herbert. 2005. The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hovenkamp, Herbert. 2011. “A Primer on Antitrust Damages.” University of Pennsylvania Law School—Faculty Scholarship, n.1846. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1685919. Accessed January 23, 2020.Google Scholar
Kahn, Lina. 2017. “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” Yale Law Journal 126: 710–805.Google Scholar
Langenfeld, James, and Alexander, Chris. 2011. “Daubert and Other Gatekeeping Challenges of Antitrust Experts.” Antitrust 25 (3): 21–28 and Appendix.Google Scholar
Mandel, Michael. 1999. “Going for the Gold: Economists as Expert Witnesses.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 13 (2): 113–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manne, Henry G. 2005. “How Law and Economics Was Marketed in a Hostile World: A Very Personal History.” In Parisi, F. and Rowley, C. K., eds., The Origins of Law and Economics: Essays by the Founding Fathers. Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 309–327.Google Scholar
Marciano, Alain, and Ramello, Giovanni B.. 2018. “Henry G. Manne—Foreword.” Special issue, European Journal of Law and Economics 46 (2): 179–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milne, Robert, and Pace, Jack. 2003. “The Scope of Expert Testimony on the Subject of Conspiracy in a Sherman Act Case.” Antitrust 17: 36–43.Google Scholar
Pitofsky, Robert, ed. 2008. How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark: The Effect of Conservative Economic Analysis on U.S. Antitrust. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, Karl. 1962. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl. 1972. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schinkel, Maarten P. 2008. “Forensic Economics in Competition Law Enforcement.” Journal of Competition Law and Economics 4 (1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solow, John, and Fletcher, Daniel. 2006. “Doing Good Economics in the Courtroom: Thoughts on Daubert and Expert Testimony in Antitrust.” Journal of Corporation Law 31: 489–502.Google Scholar
Solomon, Shana M., and Hackett, Edward J.. 1996. “Setting Boundaries between Science and Law: Lessons from Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 21 (2): 131–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teles, Steven M. 2008. The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werden, Gregory. 2008. “The Admissibility of Expert Testimony.” In Issues in Competition Law and Policy. Volume I, ch. 33. Chicago: American Bar Association—Section of Antitrust Law, pp. 801–817.Google Scholar
Wigmore, John H. 1904. A Treatise on the System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law. Volume II. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar