The Global Dominance of European Competition Law Over American Antitrust Law

Abstract

Although over 130 countries now have competition regimes, little is known about the form these laws take. Using a novel and highly detailed dataset of competition statutes around the world, which includes 171 variables on 36 critical dimensions, this article examines the relative influence of US and EU competition regimes in shaping the global regulatory landscape. We find that the EU is clearly winning this regulatory race, despite the fact that many ideas now considered central to antitrust doctrine originated in the United States. Both “push” and “pull” factors help explain this pronounced Europeanization: not only have the Europeans promoted their model much more actively through preferential trade agreements, but they have also created an administrative template that is particularly easy to emulate. As US and EU regulators offer competing regulatory models in domains as diverse as privacy, finance and the environment, our study sheds much needed empirical light on how global regulatory races are fought and won.