Workshop on Regulatory Barriers to Competition in Professional Services

Organised jointly by the Economics Department and the Competition Division of the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs

A vibrant economy requires a supple regulatory framework for professional services that fosters innovation, efficiency and growth, and ensures good quality for consumers, while taking account of country-specific legal traditions. Achieving this objective requires striking the right balance between guaranteeing that competition is effective, and addressing the market failures that characterise the provision of professional services.

The aim of this workshop was to hold a fruitful discussion on this theme by sharing new contributions on the theory of regulation, recent empirical studies assessing the links between regulatory constraints and economic variables, and lessons from regulatory reforms, with a variety of stakeholders and experts.

This workshop was looking to contribute to the revision and improvement of the OECD Product Market Regulation Indicators on professional services that, for the past twenty years, have measured barriers to competition arising from regulation in these sectors.

The discussion focused on the six professions included in the Product Market Regulation Indicators: lawyers, notaries, accountants, civil engineers, architects and estate agents.

Associate Senior Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies

Jacques Pelkmans is Senior Fellow at CEPS and visiting professor at the College of Europe and at Goethe University Frankfurt. A regular (co-)author of economic reports for the European Parliament and for the European Commission, his specialisation is in European economic integration, 'better' regulation, cross-border services, as well as EU trade policy. He publishes regularly in a range of economic and policy journals.

FL-CIO Chair Professor of Labour Policy, University of Minnesota

Morris M. Kleiner is a professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and he teaches at the Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies, both at the University of Minnesota. He is a research associate in labor studies with the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he serves as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, as well as at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. He has published numerous books and articles spanning over three decades of research, with a particular focus on occupational regulation and its impact on the labor market and its influence on quality and costs.