In comparing the historical circumstances in which ordoliberalism emerged with the socio-economic and political trends of today, this study identifies parallels that can provide useful insights into tackling current challenges in the digital age. On this basis, the study explores whether...

This paper explores the impact of ordoliberal thinking on the drafting of the prohibition of “abuse” of a dominant position in the market that was included in the competition rules of the Rome Treaty establishing the European Economic Community as well as on its interpretation by the...

The central claim of this Article is that, as a descriptive matter, trademark legislation and court interpretation is a close normative match with the Chicago School approach of scholars such as Robert Bork and Richard Posner. The organizing intellectual structure of modern trademark law, as...

We clarify and defend the Chicago School of antitrust against incorrect and uninformed claims that it represents a narrow set of inefficiency impossibility theorems based on free market ideology. The Chicago School arose decades ago as a reaction to the then current antitrust policies. Chicago...

This paper explores the origin and development of the "consumer choice" paradigm as the core concept of German ordoliberal thought which has had a strong impact on EU competition policy and law. Outside Germany, ordoliberal thought is often identified with the learning of the original "Freiburg...

Friedrich A. von Hayek’s (1899-1992) view of competition as a discovery process is well known but little used. His central thesis is that a competitive pricing system is the most effective way to coordinate economic activity and economise on the information held by market participants in a...

This article outlines relevant economic patterns in a world with artificial intelligence (AI). Five specific economic patterns influenced by AI are discussed: (1) following in the footsteps of ‘homo economicus’ a new type of agent, ‘machina economica’, enters the stage of the global...

This paper investigates the views on competition theory and policy of the American institutional economists during the first half of the 20th century. These perspectives contrasted with those of contemporary neoclassical and later mainstream economic approaches. We identify three distinct...

James M. Buchanan's contributions of 2009-2011 to the post-crisis debate in political economy emphasized the necessity to re-examine the legacy of the “Old Chicago” School. The focus of the current paper is, by following Buchanan's plea, to explore the central topoi in the 1930s debates of...

In the early 1950s, the drive to find a practical solution to European antagonisms led to the construction of the first Common Market at the European scale, between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. At the heart of the Coal and Steel Community, was the idea that...