Study On The Passing-on Theory Implementation Mechanism In Private Antitrust Enforecement

The bottleneck of the implementation of passing-on theory rests with the difficulty of quantifying passing-on rates.Hence the necessity of a mature implementation mechanism still outstands even when relevant law suits have already been filed.The introduction of Neoclassical Economics Theory and econometrics models may well be a meaningful trial to solve the problem.Neoclassical Economics Theory tends to reach to an average rate of passing-on by qualitative analysis,while econometrics prefers quantitative methods.Both methods,the qualitative and quantitative ones,reflect no obvious differences in terms of accuracy,although with the optimization of econometrics models,quantitative methods will be dominant in the future.This observation has been confirmed by the legislation of European Commission.Therefore,the key to improve the implementation mechanism of passing-on theory is to eliminate the uncertainty surrounding passing-on rate quantification in civil lawsuits by specifying one or few methods for judges to use.Furthermore,considering the current rule of burden discourages in-direct purchasers' motivation to raise a lawsuit,the rule should be adjusted accordingly.