Old Lady charm: explaining the persistent appeal of Chicago antitrust

The paper deals with the mysterious persistence of the Chicago approach as the main analytical engine driving antitrust enforcement in American courts. While the approach has been almost completely replaced in contemporary industrial economics by the so-called Post-Chicago view, Chicago arguments still permeate antitrust case law at all judicial levels. Chicago rise to dominance was allegedly due to the superiority of its economic analysis. Why did the Post-Chicago approach, which is supposed to have a clear analytical edge, fail to do the same? The paper offers a series of explanations: though none is completely exhaustive, each may account for a bit of the story. More generally, the current situation of antitrust case law offers valuable methodological insight on themes such as how economists persuade (i.e., how economic arguments come to be accepted and applied by policy- or law-makers) or the impact of the different professional practices in the diffusion of economic ideas.