INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION POLICY

Luis PALMA MARTOS, José GARCÍA HIDALGO

Abstract


A global economy cannot be driven in a consistent way by national competition laws. Both the liberalization of markets and the revolution in information and communication have triggered an unprecedented degree of interrelations of national economies. This leads to the internationalization of restrictive business practices. Despite of the WTO efforts and some agreements inside it related with antitrust, global markets have no competition rules. There are a number of economic arguments addressed to take real steps in order to establish a global framework for competition policy. Currently, the international system of competition policy seems gradually ill-suited for dealing with transnational restrictive business practices. The issue is now which organizational form and what degree of decentralization would be optimal for a multilevel system of international competition policy. Depending on the goals of the project, different degrees of decentralization would be more or less desirable.

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Keyword(s)


competition, competition policy, globalization, regulation, international restrictive practices, multilevel system

JEL Codes


K21, L40, F02, F53

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