Economic analysis has improved the application of EU competition law in many respects. But this article argues that economic analysis has not had major material implications with regard to policy definition or case handling. Some economists have indeed pointed out that the economic tradition of academic modelling based on introspective deduction is ill suited for the requirements of competition policy. Thus the move to an SLC test in merger control does not seem to have closed any ‘gap’, and it is argued that most decisions that have taken place under the new test, could have been handled in very much the same way under the dominance test. The non–horizontal merger guidelines and recent cases apparently have shifted the control of mergers to something closer to prevention of abuses, by focusing excessively on modelling of pre–merger behaviour and less on strategic reactions to the merger. With regard to efficiencies, in eighteen years the Commission has not found yet, a single case where efficiencies have made a difference in the decision, so one may wonder if the current formulation of the efficiency test is appropriate. Finally, economic analysis is proving itself incapable of defining policy in the area of abuses of dominance.
World Competition