Competition Thinking Still in Silos

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Yesterday I presented at the US Chamber of Commerce on the SOE challenge.  One issue that I raised is that there is too much thinking within existing organizational silos among US government agencies (DOJ. FTC, USTR, Commerce, State, and Treasury).  To ameliorate this silo thinking, why not have people from each agency spend 3 to 6 months on secondment to one of the other agencies.  Antitrust enforcers could get a broader understanding of competition policy concerns with time at a trade agency and trade people could learn how markets actually work and competition analysis from the antitrust agencies.  I would suggest a similar secondment in a purely domestic context with FERC, FCC and other agencies spending some time at DOJ and FTC and vice versa.