While there is long-standing view that competition drives innovation and that innovation, in turn, drives higher welfare and economic growth, there is no theoretical consensus on the precise relationship between these two important components of a market economy.
In December 2023 the OECD held a roundtable to discuss how competition authorities incorporate innovation as part of their assessment in merger review and enforcement investigations. It focussed on aspects such as how they consider innovation when defining and examining markets, as well as when analysing the effects of conduct and transactions. The session reviewed cases where competition authorities used innovation-specific theories of harm, others where innovation was only considered as past of a standard analysis, and others where it was used as a justification for anti-competitive behaviour or as an efficiency claim.
This session was preceeded by a discussion in June 2023 on the relationship between competition and innovation which discussed theoretical perspectives.
The findings of both discussions on the topic were presented to the public at large during the 2024 edition of our OECD Competition Open Day on 6 March 2024.
This page contains all session information and materials.
