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Competition

Assessing and Communicating the Benefits of Competition Interventions

 

Read the background note 

Consistent and meaningful performance measures allow to assess the impact of the activities of competition authorities. This is useful to show the benefits of competition interventions for consumers, to enhance the credibility of the agency and to justify the use of the resources. The measurement of the activity of authorities also increases transparency and accountability, especially when authorities publish their priorities or work plan in advance. A growing number of competition authorities assess the impact of their interventions and report details of their activity. Competition authorities reports include a range of measures such as the number of interventions, the fines imposed or an assessment of the expected benefits for consumers arising from merger control activity and decisions on antitrust infringements.

Competition authorities can leverage the assessment of consumer benefits arising from competition interventions, as part of a wider communication strategy about the authority’s role and its contribution to the economy and the society to increase its awareness of and compliance with competition law. 

In June 2023, the OECD held a roundtable on the assessment and communication of benefits of competition interventions to see how competition authorities measure the impact of their activity and how they communicate both the benefits of competition interventions and the benefits of competition more generally.

Some key findings of the discussion were:

  • Authorities communicate regularly with many different audiences and tailor their messages carefully.
  • To achieve their communication goals, authorities use a range of tools to communicate the benefits of their interventions with stakeholders.
  • In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the number of competition authorities conducting impact assessments, using a methodology similar to the one outlined in the 2014 OECD Guide for assessing the impact of competition authorities' activities. Today, more than 15 competition authorities have adopted this approach.

 

See the full list of best practice roundtables on competition.

Invited speakers

Padraic Convery
Communications Specialist

William Kovacic Bio 
Professor of Law and Director, Competition Law Center, George Washington University

Fabienne Ilzkovitz Bio 
Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Documents 

OECD Background Note | Note de référence de l'OCDE

Paper by William Kovacic

Article by William Kovacic 

Detailed Summary of the discussion EN | FR

Executive Summary with key findings EN | FR

 

Contributions from participating delegations

Argentina

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Chinese Taipei

Croatia

EU

France EN | FR

Greece

Hungary

Israel

Italy

Kazakhstan

Latvia

Lithuania

Mexico

Norway

Portugal

Philippines

Romania

Singapore

Slovenia

Spain

Türkiye

Ukraine

United Kingdom

United States 

Summaries of contributions

Presentations

Related best practice roundtables

Evaluation of competitive impacts of government interventions (2014)

Communication by Competition Authorities (2002)

Evaluation of the Actions and Resources of Competition Authorities (2005)

Impact Evaluation of Merger Decisions (2011)

See also

Evaluation of Competition Interventions

Guide for assessing the impact of competition authorities' activities (2014)

Reference guide on ex-post evaluation of competition agencies’ enforcement decisions (2016)

Competition and macroeconomic outcomes factsheet (2014)

Workshops on ex-post evaluation of enforcement decisions by competition authorities (2015, 2016)

OECD best practice roundtables on competition

More OECD work on competition

 

Related Documents