The Importance of Assessing the Economic Impact of the Case Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union: Some Exploratory Thoughts

Abstract

This paper considers the need to use the anticipated economic effects of the Judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as an assessment tool, and explores how to help (or rather, make) the CJEU integrate such impact assessment in its decision-making process. The ultimate normative assumption that underlies this line of thought is that the research and practice of EU economic law must be informed by economics. This short paper presents some exploratory ideas on: a) the importance of assessing the economic impact of the case law of the CJEU, and b) the opportunity of using a set of tools derived from the existing literature on regulatory impact assessments (RIA) to try to do so. The conclusions briefly sketch an agenda for future research.

Keywords: case law, Court of Justice of the European Union, economic effects, economic impact, impact assessment, RIA, empirical legal studies

JEL Classification: K20, K40