Snake-Oil With Mathematics is Still Snakeoil: Why Recent Trends in the Application of So-Called “Sophisticated” Economics is Hindering Good Competition Policy Enforcement

"Since, to many readers, it will appear rather strange that an economist active in the world of competition policy for over 20 years would seek to argue that the use of “sophisticated” economics is not helping good competition policy enforcement, I need to begin this paper by making the following clear statement: economics is central to any sensible implementation of competition law and the explicit use of economic reasoning has had numerous beneficial effects on the implementation of competition law. The development of the application of competition law in Europe over the last 20 years has been characterised by two trends: first, the explicit use of economic principles; and secondly, the testing of hypotheses derived from the application of those principles with reference to observed market behaviour, ie the facts.