The allocation of jurisdiction in international antitrust

In this paper, we consider the organisation of international antitrust as a n issue of institution design which involves a trade-off between an inadequ ate internalisation of external effects across jurisdictions and the risk o f capture in a centralised agency. We focus on the first element of the tra de-off and on merger control. We first point out that the current framework of public international law allows for wide discretion in the assertion of jurisdiction. We then consider various allocations of jurisdictions in a s tylised model of international merger control which attempts to capture the essential features of the objectives being pursued and of the procedures b eing implemented in the major jurisdictions, We find that in this framework , much of the scope for conflict disappears. The fact that conflicts actual ly often arise in global industries must then be associated with the pursui t of objectives that antitrust authorities are not supposed to pursue. We a lso find that the allocation of jurisdiction matters surprisingly little fo r the final outcome. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JE L classification: L3; K21; F2.