Competition, Regulation and Development

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

CUTS has released a policy paper that summarizes the papers presented at its conference in March on Competition, Regulation and Development. 

According to CUTS, the common factor across almost all developing countries is market  friendly reforms, which go hand in hand with market failures. To undertake market reforms, most of developing countries have adopted competition and regulatory laws. But mere adoption of these laws will not work unless appropriate institutional mechanisms for enforcement and review is put in place. For this the value of  "political will" is very important. Equally important is the creation of culture of competition, and the simultaneous involvement of the consumers in the entire process to successfully leverage the advantages of market based competition. In this context it is very necessary to design sound and robust competition and regulatory policies that goes beyond being `business friendly' to being stakeholder friendly.  It should explicitly recognize and incorporate consumer interests and unambiguously include advocacy as a tool for promoting awareness among consumers. However, on account of weak institutional foundations this task is not easy with problems getting compounded.