Reports

Digital technologies are transforming the environment in which firms compete online. While this change has delivered wide-reaching benefits for consumers, it has also given rise to potential competition concerns. One such area of concern relates to conglomerate mergers, which occur between firms that are neither product market competitors nor in a supply relationship. This Going Digital Toolkit note describes how merger control, and in particular the review of conglomerate mergers, can be an effective tool for making online markets more competitive.

This review analyses regulatory barriers to competition in the logistics sector in Brunei Darussalam, with the goal of helping the government make regulation more pro-competitive while fostering long-lasting growth. This report is based on a competition assessment of laws and regulations conducted by the OECD in the framework of the project 'Fostering Competition in Asean'. Besides developing recommendations to promote the competitive and efficient functioning of markets under review, this report also includes estimates of how the implementation of certain recommendations could impact the economy. An OECD Competitive Neutrality Review of Small-package Delivery Services in Brunei Darussalam was launched together with this study.

Despite potentially tremendous benefits, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lag in the digital transformation. Emerging technologies, as diverse as they are, offer a range of applications for them to improve performance and overcome the size-related limitations they face in doing business. However, SMEs must be better prepared, and stakes are high. SMEs make the most of the industrial fabric in many countries and regions, they create jobs (most jobs sometimes) and are the cement of inclusive and sustainable societies. The SME digital gap has increased inequalities among people, places and firms, and there are concerns that the benefits of the digital transformation could accrue to early adopters, further broadening these inequalities. Enabling SME digitalisation has become a top policy priority in OECD countries and beyond. The report looks at recent trends in SME digital uptake, including in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. It focuses on issues related to digital security, online platforms, blockchain ecosystems, and artificial intelligence. The report identifies opportunities, risks of not going digital, and barriers to adoption. It looks to concrete policy action taken worldwide to speed the SME transformation and raises a series of considerations to advance the SME digital policy agenda.

This paper uses firm-level data analysis to assess the extent, and the economic and policy implications of state-owned enterprises (hereafter SOEs) in the shipbuilding sector. Even though the available data appears to be limited in certain respects, one of the paper’s key findings demonstrates that SOEs occupy a significant share in global ship completions, but are likely to operate with lower profitability rates and to be more highly leveraged than private enterprises. This report also presents a number of guiding principles to assess SOEs’ behaviour and their potential impact on the shipbuilding market, such as good corporate governance frameworks and the principle of competitive neutrality. To provide a concrete comparative analysis of SOEs and their private counterparts, the paper examines a case-study comparing the Chinese central state-owned enterprise CSIC and its private counterpart Yangzijiang Shipbuilding.

This review analyses regulatory barriers to competition in the logistics sector in the Philippines, with the goal of helping the government make regulation more pro-competitive while fostering long-lasting growth. This report is based on a competition assessment of laws and regulations conducted by the OECD in the framework of the project 'Fostering Competition in Asean'. Besides developing recommendations to promote the competitive and efficient functioning of markets under review, this report also includes estimates of how the implementation of certain recommendations could impact the economy. An OECD Competitive Neutrality Review of Small-package Delivery Services in the Philippines was launched together with this study.

Online personalised pricing is a form of price discrimination that involves charging different prices to different consumers, often based on a consumer’s personal data. Policymakers are currently discussing ways to protect consumers from potential adverse effects of personalised pricing. One option involves displaying disclosures on the websites of retailers that use personalised pricing, in order for consumers to make informed purchase decisions. This paper summarizes findings from a laboratory experiment on the effects that online disclosures about personalised pricing have on consumers. Results from the experiment suggest that online disclosures have only limited effects on consumers’ ability to identify and comprehend online personalised pricing, and cannot confirm a significant effect on participants’ purchasing behaviour. Results from a questionnaire distributed to participants reveal that on average personalised pricing is considered an unfair practice that should be prohibited.

This report assesses the impact of digitalisation on competition by examining the evolution of mark-ups and multifactor productivity (MFP) across firms of different sizes. It finds that size is positively related to mark-ups and that this relationship has strengthened over time. This trend has been accompanied by an increase in the relative productivity advantage of larger firms and both changes are more pronounced in digital-intensive sectors, suggesting that digitalisation may be an underlying driver. Policy makers may need to consider appropriate responses if digital technologies affect larger and smaller firms in a heterogeneous manner.

Society has become increasingly aware of environmental and human rights-related risks in global supply chains in recent years. Public procurement can make a positive contribution to economic, environmental and social progress. If not used strategically, though, people and the planet may face more negative impacts. Meanwhile, governments and businesses face calls to take greater responsibility for their purchasing decisions. Risk-based supply chain due diligence can help public buyers to boost responsible business behaviour through public procurement. This report takes stock of current practices integrating responsible business conduct (RBC) in public procurement and identifies possible avenues to increase the impact of public procurement strategies to promote responsible business conduct objectives. Based on a survey with both OECD Members and Adherents to OECD instruments on public procurement and RBC, it covers a wide geographical range and features data focused on responsible business conduct aspects in public procurement. The report encourages policy makers and practitioners in public procurement and RBC to collaborate with all relevant stakeholders, drawing on good practices from across policy areas.