Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog

Women in Antitrust

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

I have been thinking about gender in antitrust for an ongoing empirical project in which I am examining among other things why economic analysis of law has taken a monopoly position within the US legal academy but why we have not seen a similar transformation in IP or tax, two other areas of economic regulation.  I have discovered that the gender numbers for antitrust in the academy may be the worst for any substantive area of law.

TOTAL PROFESSORS TEACHING IN US LAW SCHOOLS
Year	Antitrust	IP	Tax
1957	157	16	87
1967	153	88	388
1977	295	195	726
1987	289	198	573
1997	297	314	567
2007	312	512	608
FEMALES
Year	Antitrust	IP	Tax
1957	2	0	3
1967	2	2	5
1977	10	8	38
1987	17	26	83
1997	22	62	106
2007	36	134	137

In 1957, women professors in antitrust and trade regulation (there is no separate antitrust category so this number may include some consumer protection people) made up less than 2 percent of those teaching antitrust.  Fast forward to 2007 and women teaching antitrust (those writing in antitrust for a majority of their publications is even smaller - more on this in a later post) make up only 12 percent of the full time antitrust legal academy who have ever taught antitrust. 

It is therefore great to report that the Global Competition Review has released Women in Antitrust 2009 with profiles of the world's leading female antitrust practitioners.

The elite female practitioners include:

Margaret Zwisler

My only quibble with the list is that it seems to omit top female economists and in-house people.  On the margins there are a few additional practitioners that have been particularly important in shaping global antitrust policy that I would have included.