I had the great pleasure of studying at UC Berkeley one year in 1993. Furthermore, my unofficial thesis supervisor was professor Oliver Williamson (unofficial as I was actually enrolled at the IUE in Firenze an had professor Günther Teubner as my official supervisor and attended UC Berkeley as part of an exchange programme between the two institutions).

A big part of my time at both the IUE and at UC Berkeley was spent reading books and articles by Oliver E. Williamson on transaction cost economics. His insights have also today been very helpful in connection with my work on Internet law. I remember taking a course at UC Berkeley by home on the economics of bureaucracy and in particular I was fascinated and still is by his concept of Inefficiency by Design, which he among other things applied to the rationale behind the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

Now, Oliver E. Williamson has received this years Nobel prize in Economics (sharing it with Elinor Ostrom)