Does Experience Make You ‘Tougher’? Evidence from Competition Law

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Ludivine Garside, University of Bristol – Leverhulme Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO), Paul A. Grout, University of Bristol – Leverhulme Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) and Anna Zalewska, University of Bath – Centre for Governance and Regulation; School of Management ask Does Experience Make You ‘Tougher’? Evidence from Competition Law

ABSTRACT: This article investigates experience effects for public officials. Using a unique data set of companies investigated under UK competition law, we find very strong experience effects for chairmen of investigation panels, estimated from the increase in experience of individual chairman. Probit and IV probit regressions indicate that replacing an inexperienced chairman with one of average experience increases the probability of a ‘guilty’ outcome by approximately 30% and, after chairing around 30 cases, a chairman is predicted to find almost every case guilty.