This document contains the proceedings of a Roundtable on Competition and Payment Systems held in October 2012. Discussions focused on recent country experiences on developments regarding all non-paper based forms of payment such as debit and credit cards, and E-payments (through internet, mobile phones etc.).

This publication assesses the impact of previous competition law and policy reviews in nine Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru. This report was discussed during the 2012 annual meeting of the OECD-IDB Latin American Competition Forum held in the Dominican Republic.

This document contains the proceedings of a Roundtable on Vertical Restraints for On-line Sales held in the February 2013 session of the OECD Competition Committee. Discussions reviewed recent country experiences focusing on how e-commerce affects competition and what are the main vertical restraints competition issues.

Competition authorities are investigating how competition can help lower the prices of essential goods and services for the poor and what competition authorities can do to help, as well as examining how competition policy can help reduce poverty by stimulating employment, innovation and growth.

Strong competition is an optimizer for our economies. First of all, it is the best catalyst to increase our productivity. This is because a strong competition framework generates the right incentives to attract the most efficient firms into our markets.

The OECD welcomes the initiative by the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS) to organise reverse auctions for the procurement of medicines. This is a further step forward in the fight against collusion in public procurement and the latest in a series of improvements in procurement by IMSS that have already saved the taxpayer billions of pesos.

This document compiles the material discussed in a competition policy roundtable on quality in competition analysis, including a summary of the discussion, country contributions, a background note and expert contribution on how quality factors are handled under U.S. law in the litigated assessment of the competitive effects of resale price maintenance.

This document compiles the material discussed in a competition policy roundtable on road fuel, including a summary of the discussion, country contributions and a background note that discusses the main determinants of gasoline prices and highlights relevant competition features of the markets for road fuel along the supply chain.

We understand how much Greek society has endured these past six years. Reform isn’t easy at the best of times, but it can be even more challenging in the face of a weak economy while at the same time trying to correct a budget deficit. But all crises come to an end. Growth does return. Now is the time to maintain the momentum of Greece’s reform drive, said OECD Secretary-General.

An 11-month investigation by the OECD in cooperation with the Greek authorities has identified a wide range of regulations and legal provisions that undermine competition.

We need to fight distortions to competition that can arise from tax avoidance, just like we do from other forms of government intervention, such as regulation, said OECD Secretary-General.

Romania's competition system underwent a peer review of its laws and regulations at the 2014 Global Forum on Competition on 27-28 February 2014. Following this, the report was released at a launch event in Bucharest on 8 April 2014.

This document is a guide prepared for competition authorities to help them assess the expected impact of their activities. It provides a simple and easily-applicable methodology for determining the likely benefits that consumers will derive from the agencies’ decisions as well as suggestions on how to present the results of the assessment to ensure that these are correctly interpreted.

Merger control constitutes an essential component of an effective competition system. This in-depth study of Chile’s merger control regime assesses the main existing issues in the current system and provides suggestions for improvement based on OECD and international standards.

Globalisation has brought a much more international dimension to competition law. This paper presents evidence of the complexity of co-operation between competition agencies and the likely challenges they will encounter in the future to enforce competition law and co-operate effectively.

The President of the French Republic, Mr. François Hollande, met the Heads of five international economic organisations at the OECD on Friday 17th October to discuss the challenges facing the global economy.

‌International co-operation in competition law enforcement is at the core of the OECD competition-related work. Prepared by the OECD Competition Committee, this inventory focuses mainly on fifteen bilateral comprehensive government-to-government co-operation agreements where at least one of the signatories is an OECD country.

Governments are increasingly assessing the effects of their policies and effectiveness of public institutions, and competition agencies are no exception. This factsheet was elaborated to help competition agencies advocate their work. It contains evidence on the links between competition and macro-economic outcomes.

Costa Rica's competition system underwent a peer review of its laws and regulations at the 2014 Latin American Competition Forum on 16-17 September 2014. The report was launched in San José on 4 December 2014 and provides a through insight into the current strengths and weakness of the Costa Rican competition regime.

Third Annual Conference on the theme of "Fiscal Policies and the Green Economy Transition: Generating Knowledge – Creating Impact" held at the University of Venice from 29 through 30 January 2015. The press release is available.

This OECD report presents market studies practices in the six Latin America countries and provides areas for improvement on how to improve their legal and institutional set-up based on competition agencies’ practices.

Market studies provide competition authorities with an in-depth understanding of how sectors and markets work. The OECD and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office are providing support to Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and Peru in their use of market studies as an important competition tool.

The OECD’s Annual Meeting at Ministerial Level reinforced member governments’ support across a broad range of key OECD work.

Disruptive innovation is redefining markets around the world and the Latin American and Caribbean region is no exception. In the run-up to the Latin American and Caribbean Competition Forum in Mexico-City on 12-13 April 2016, this article looks at the competition enforcement challenges and advocacy opportunities around disruptive innovations in the region.

Competition policy is vital for creating opportunities for small business and big industry alike. It benefits consumers by reducing prices and increasing the choice of goods and services. This joint World Bank Group-OECD event showcased countries whose pro-competition reform efforts serve as examples for their regional and international peers and introduced tools to guide the design of new and improved policies.

Paris, 19 April 2016: This capacity building workshop on ex-post evaluation of enforcement decisions by competition authorities provided capacity building to competition officials that have already been or will be involved in the ex-post evaluation of enforcement decisions.

Kazakhstan's competition system underwent a peer review of its law and regulation at the 2015 Global Forum on Competition on 29-30 October 2015. The report was launched in Astana on 25 May 2016 and provides a throught insight into the current strenghts and weakness of the Kazakhstan competition regime.

Disruptive innovations are beginning to transform legal services and the manner in which they are delivered. Competition authorities can play a role in advocating for regulatory systems that reflect current market realities and ensure market access for pro-competitive disruptive innovations.

This report shows how competition and public procurement agencies have been using the 2012 OECD Recommendation on Fighting Bid Rigging to raise awareness of bid rigging risks and develop tools to detect bid rigging in public procurement.

Good corporate governance plays a vital role in underpinning the integrity and efficiency of financial markets. Mr. Rintaro Tamaki, Deputy Secretary General of the OECD, will open the 2016 OECD Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance on Monday 24 October with Mr. Chang Jae Lee, Vice Minister of Justice in Korea, to address corporate governance standards and practices in Asia.

The OECD’s latest Competition Assessment of Greece looks at e-commerce, construction, media, wholesale trade and a number of manufacturing sectors such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Lifting many of the regulations stifling business competition in Greece would benefit both consumers, through lower prices, and firms, via higher turnover, according to the OECD.

Reforms that boost growth by enhancing economic flexibility often meet strong opposition related to concerns that they may imply adverse consequences for categories of workers. This study investigates how making product or labour market regulation more flexible changes workers’ risks of moving out of employment and jobless people’s chances of becoming employed.

In the framework of an OECD project with the Mexican Ministry of Economy, this manual provides guidance on how to carry out an inquiry or examination into a particular market when there is a suspicion or indication that a market is not functioning well. It explains what market examinations are as well as their purposes, intended outcomes and substantive content.

Turkey’s manufacturing sector has expanded considerably but not efficiently and competitively enough.

This document describes and discusses a new supply side framework that quantifies the impact of structural reforms on per capita income in OECD countries.

In the framework of a project with the Mexican Ministry of Economy, this report provides an overview of international experiences and best practices regarding the role of courts in the implementation of competition policy. It presents different institutional designs, the role of courts, courts specialisation and their benefits as well as their relationship with other government bodies and stakeholders.

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

Governments everywhere are increasingly interested in assessing the effects of their policies and the effectiveness of public institutions. Competition policy is no exception. Competition agencies affect the economy by taking decisions on cases under competition law. With their governments, they can influence market competition in the economy more widely through policy interventions.

‌International co-operation in competition law enforcement is at the core of the OECD competition-related work. This inventory covers over 140 co-operation MoUs between competition agencies where at least one of the signatories is a competition authority of an OECD Member, Associate or Participant to the OECD Competition Committee, or the European Union.

Drawing on data presented in the 2017 OECD Business and Finance Outlook, this article looks at some of the forces influencing recent economic developments and asks what can be done to ensure a “fairer” global economy.

A more open world economy brings about new opportunities, stimulates creativity and innovation. It enables poorer countries to catch up and exploits global economies of scale. But globalisation also brings challenges, as it might spread the benefits unequally among people and regions, some of which are less well positioned to seize its potential. These benefits and challenges also apply for competition policy in a globalised world.

This publication puts forward a research agenda that advocates the importance of market competition, effective market regulation, and competition policies for achieving inclusive growth and shared prosperity in emerging and developing economies. It is the result of a global partnership and shared commitment between the World Bank Group and the OECD.

This article by OECD's Antonio Capobianco and Pedro Gonzaga focuses on whether algorithms can make tacit collusion easier, both in oligopolistic markets and in markets which do not manifest the structural features that are usually associated with the risk of collusion. It was published in the August 2017 edition of the CPI Chronicle.

The combination of big data with technologically advanced tools is changing the competitive landscape in many markets and sectors. While this is producing benefits and efficiencies, it is also raising concerns of possible anti-competitive behaviour. This paper looks at whether algorithms can make tacit collusion easier and discusses some of the challenges they present for both competition law enforcement and market regulation.

Lack of competition can drive up prices of goods and services, with substantive negative effects for the poor, whose consumption basket is dominated by first necessity goods and services. Using new data, this study calibrates the overall impact of market power, showing a substantial impact on wealth inequality in the eight countries examined.

Some policies drive growth, others act to redistribute income or wealth. While competition has long been known to drive economic growth, it can also make an important contribution to reducing income and wealth inequality.

Many laws and regulations set the rules for how businesses enter, operate and exit a market and competition assessments help to ensure that these regulations are not overly or inadvertently restrictive for businesses and consumers. This article looks at the tangible contributions competition assessment is making to reforms underway in Greece.

Significant corruption, labour, human rights and environmental risks are associated with the organisation of large sporting events. The OECD has instruments and expertise in implementation of complex projects can help host governments, event organisers and their business partners ensure that the world of sport remains associated with the traditional values of excellence and fair play.

Paris, 30 January 2018: This workshop on cartel screening in the digital era provided competition officials with an insight into the latest developments on screening methods and an opportunity to share their experiences. Related documentation and presentations available here.