Competition Policy in Latin America

The last ten years have seen many Latin American and Caribbean nations enact or reform competition laws, and numerous other jurisdictions are considering following suit. The evidential base to guide such policymaking is, however, limited. In this paper we have assembled two databases, one concerning allegations of anti‐competitive acts in newspaper articles and another concerning the relationship between competition‐related factors and the effects of reforms to liberalise markets, that may go some way to remedying this deficiency. In so doing, we have noticed a number of matters that producers and consumers of research in this area should probably bear in mind.

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“… See Castaneda (2003), De Leon(2001)andOwen (2003) for recent overviews of competition law and policy in the LAC region.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Anti-competitive Practices and Liberalising Markets in Latin America and the Caribbean

2005

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“…The latter statement is opposed by the authors of this monograph, in whose view the knowledge of competition law would dispel doubts about the likely anticompetitive behaviour without impeding lawful forms of cooperation between undertakings. This is supported by Owen (2003) who shows for several countries in Latin America that competition laws without enforcement can hardly have an influence on the creation of a competitive culture. Scholarly 4 The average consumer benefits resulting from the work of the Competition Council ranges from 13.24 million € (when only direct financial benefits are included) to 77.73 million € (including deterrence).…”

Section: Cartels and Antitrust Policymentioning

confidence: 86%

“…on average 1.04 million € per year, revealed that the direct benefits to consumers brought by the Competition Council exceeded its annual budget by 12.6 times or by almost 75 times (if deterrence effect is included). statements about the absent or low deterrent effect of antitrust policy are opposed by the latest theoretical works ) and empirical research (Buccirossi et al 2013;Allain et al 2011;Clarke and Evenett 2003;Owen 2003), providing evidence that the development of antitrust policy enforcement strengthens market competition and that strongly enforced antitrust law has a deterrent effect; that is, it is expected to decrease the rate of overcharge and prevent illegal price-fixing behaviour in the future. As stressed by Buccirossi et al (2013), by deterring anti-competitive practices competition policy makes markets work effectively and fosters efficiency, and that good competition policy has a strong impact on total factor productivity 5 growth.…”

Section: Cartels and Antitrust Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Cartels on National Economy and Competitiveness

Bruneckienė¹,

Pekarskienė²,

Guzavičius³

et al. 2015

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“…According to Owen (2003), years later, a similar set of concerns, possibly involving electronic tariff publishing and more traditional forms of collusion, arose in Brazil. In August 2003, the presidents of Brazil's four major airlines met together in a hotel.…”

Section: Box 6: Allegations Of Airline Price Fixing In the Us And Bramentioning

confidence: 99%

International trade in air transport: Recent developments and policy issues

2005

World Trade Report

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The traditional approach to sectoral trade analysis is to examine the pattern, volume and value of international trade. This approach, however, is difficult for the international air transport sector, due to the paucity of data and the complexity of the industry. For example, data on the number of passengers transported from one country to another can be recorded as an import or an export, depending on the origin of the passengers and the nationality of the company that transports them. Furthermore, the expenditures of the passengers in the country where they disembark can also have balance of payments implications. Consequently, direct and indirect expenditures can be classified according to a number of categories, creating an estimation problem.Despite these limitations, the available data on the characteristics and performance of the industry are indicative of the kinds of results that one would obtain if a full set of trade data was available. This Section, therefore, adopts a more general approach by using generic air transport data to identify the broad linkages between the industry and international trade patterns. (a)Output and performance of the industryThe performance of the air transport industry depends on the same broad factors that determine economic performance. These include growth in gross domestic product (GDP), growth in international trade in goods and services, and growth in other industries that use air travel as a mode to transport cargo and people. In this context, the sustained economic growth experienced by the world economy in the past two decades and the strong performance of international trade has translated into a strong positive trend for international traffic.Industry specific factors are also important in determining performance. Here, the air transport industry is no different from other industries -exogenous shocks can exert positive and negative effects on its performance. Events such as those that occurred on 11 September 2001 are an example of how an external event can have significant consequences for the industry. Similarly, the rapid rise of the use of the internet, especially for direct business to customer contact, is another example.Chart 1 captures the overall economic performance of the industry during the past 40 years, using a number of indicators. First, overall traffic in the industry, as measured in tonne kilometres performed (TKPs) has increased steadily. 3 The only two exceptions are in 1991 and 2001. Second, real yields have been declining as revenues over expenses have been static. Taken together, these two indicators, suggest that the financial performance of the industry has been fairly static in absolute terms and declining when measured in logs as in the Chart. This weak performance is against a backdrop of increases in costs of inputs, such as fuel and labour, and productivity gains.A broader set of performance indicators, for a more recent time period and specifically for international travel are presented in Table 1. These data show that internationa...

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Competition Policy in Latin America

Cited by 7 publications

References 9 publications

Anti-competitive Practices and Liberalising Markets in Latin America and the Caribbean

Anti-competitive Practices and Liberalising Markets in Latin America and the Caribbean

The Impact of Cartels on National Economy and Competitiveness

International trade in air transport: Recent developments and policy issues

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