| This research represents an investigation of the economic content of the opinions of judges in federal antitrust litigation. The purpose of the study is to determine: (1) to what extent antitrust decisions are based on economic evidence or authority. (2) how the use of economic evidence has changed over time. (3) whether the type and amount of economic evidence changes among the Federal court levels.;A sample of 84 case opinions from the population of antitrust cases reaching the opinion stage between 1940 and 1987 was selected. Computer assisted and manual content analysis procedures were used to analyze the cases and to develop a data base of economic content for the study. An economic dictionary and eleven measures of economic content were developed for the study and applied against the cases in the data base. The measures were used to test five hypotheses concerning the level and type of economic content of the case opinions.;The findings of the study indicate that two of the eleven economic measures show significant differences in the level of economic content, when the cases are divided into four equal time periods. Further, when the antitrust case opinions are divided into two equal time periods, five of the economic measures show significant differences in the level of economic content. This comparison of pre-1964 and post-1964 antitrust case opinions show that cases decided after 1964 generally rely more heavily upon economic content in the opinions.;The Supreme Court is the heaviest user of economic content in case opinions, with eight of the eleven measures showing a significant difference between Supreme Court case opinions and those of the other two Federal court levels. There appears to be no relationship, however, between the business and economic environment of the country and the level of economic content in the cases. Nor did the findings show a relationship between the type of judgment approach ("per se" vs. "rule of reason") used in the case and the level of economic content. A tentative finding is that there is a relationship between the type and level of economic content and the manner in which the court categorizes the antitrust violation. More research, using the tools developed for this study, is recommended. |
