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Competition assessment documents and links - Competition Assessment Framework (DFID)

UK DFID Competition Assessment Framework

Competition and Regulation in Retail Banking

Competition can improve the functioning of the retail banking sector without harming prudential regulation. Customer mobility and choice are essential to stimulate banking competition; credit ratings and easy, low-cost transaction costs for switching are crucial for promoting customer mobility.

Competitive Restrictions in Legal Professions

Regulation of the legal professions, including self-regulation, typically involves many restrictions on entry and professional conduct. Certain restrictions may be a remedy to market failures and may also be based on distributional or paternalistic motives. But other restrictions can be based on rent-seeking and achieve cartel-like effects. The major policy challenge is to identify and remove the restrictions which are unnecessary or

Policy Brief: Competition Policy and Concessions

Governments have long been engaged in providing goods or services to their citizens that could, in some form, be provided by the private sector. The trend over the past few decades, however, has been to transfer these functions, and the state-owned assets used to provide them, to private hands. The most common method, and the one usually preferred, is privatisation, or outright sale or transfer of ownership of the relevant assets to

Policy Brief: Prosecuting Cartels without Direct Evidence of Agreement

Cartels are agreements among competitors fixing prices, allocating markets or rigging tenders (bids). They are the most harmful of all types of competition law violations and should be sanctioned severely. Cartel cases are unique. The most important part of a cartel case is simply proving that such an agreement existed. But getting direct evidence of a cartel agreement can be difficult. Cartel operators work in secret and often do not

Policy Brief: Competition and Barriers to Entry

Before a firm can compete in a market, it has to be able to enter it. Many markets have at least some impediments that make it more difficult for a firm to enter a market. A debate over how to define the term “barriers to entry” began decades ago, however, and it has yet to be won. Some scholars have argued, for example, that an obstacle is not an entry barrier if incumbent firms faced it when they entered the market. Others contend

Síntesis: Derecho y política de la competencia: Examen inter-pares – Argentina

En los últimos 25 años, Argentina ha avanzado considerablemente, aunque de manera irregular, hacia el establecimiento de una economía de mercado eficiente. En todos los países, las políticas de defensa de la competencia constituyen una componente importante de ese esfuerzo. Los avances de esas políticas en Argentina también han sido desiguales debido a que la turbulenta historia política y económica del país los ha afectado de muchas

Competition Law and Policy in Chinese Taipei (Chinese version)

Competition Law and Policy in Chinese Taipei

Competition law in Chinese Taipei has been an important element of the program of economic reforms that moved the economy from centrally directed emphasis on manufacturing and exports to a market-driven emphasis on services and high technology.

Policy Brief: The Policy Framework for Investment

Private investment is essential for ensuring economic growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction. It increases the productive capacity of an economy, drives job creation, brings innovation and new technologies, and boosts income growth. But the amount of private investment, particularly in African and developing economies, falls short of development needs. And the benefits of investment in emerging and transition economies