SOMETHING TO READ, AUSTRIAN STYLE

The IPKat has recently received an interesting book from Cheltenham-based publishers Edward Elgar. Edited by Dina Kallay, it's called The Law and Economics of Antitrust and Intellectual Property: an Austrian Approach (contents here). A revised version of the author's SJD degree thesis at the University of Michigan Law School, this book makes for some pretty cerebral reading.

The IPKat has long believed that intellectual property and antitrust are the two poles between which competition policy oscillates. IP law creates monopolies and enhances market domination, while antitrust law destroys monopolies and prevents or regulates the extent to which market domination may be achieved. Both must be understood if either body of law is to be effective. Many practising lawyers believe that that the balance between the two can be achieved on an empirical basis, but economists prefer to set their interrelationship within a meaningful theoretical framework. That this book reads (to this lawyer) like a work of economics should not be taken as a criticism of it, but rather as an admission that it demands a greater degree of theoretical appreciation of economics than most lawyers possess. However, lawyer must speak to economist if there is to be any meaningful dialogue between the reasons for control and the means of achieving it -- and this book certainly aids that dialogue.

More on Dina Kallay here