The Role of Competition Policy in Promoting Economic Recovery

2 December 2020 & 24 February 2021

As the COVID-19 crisis moved towards economic recovery, governments, policymakers and regulators, including competition authorities, face different challenges in order to support a swift and robust recovery.

In a world hard hit by a pandemic on an unprecedented scale, where entire sectors are being subject to change, expecting market forces to provide all the incentives to adapt to the new world within the timeframes that minimises deep economic crisis with all its implications on social cohesion, is probably not enough. Therefore, in most jurisdictions, the state has been playing a role in minimising the direct hit from the crisis and can be expected to continue to play a role in the shaping of the recovery.

In this context, the question therefore arises: how can competition policy and more specifically competition authorities contribute to a faster and more sustained economic recovery?

In December 2020, the OECD held a roundtable to discuss:

Is there a role for competition authorities in the recovery phase and what might it be?
What is the role of competition advocacy in the design and implementation of state interventions?
What is the role for competition enforcement in the recovery?

The key findings of this discussion were again explored during the 2021 OECD Competition Open Day in a virtual event open to the public.

All related documentation are available on this page.

» See full list of best practice roundtables on competition