Governments are charged with establishing and enforcing
laws and regulations that promote and protect fair public policies. These
obligations can be fulfilled by several means and policy options including laws
and regulations that increase competition. This increased competition can benefit a country's - or
industry's - economy through overall economic performance, which leads to new
business opportunities, and reduces the cost of goods and services to
consumers.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), - an excellent source of governance
related guidance documents, toolkits or other resources- created the
OECD's Competition Assessment Toolkit to assist governments in
fulfilling their charge of promoting and protecting fair public policies
.
The toolkit is designed to help governments identify
unnecessary regulatory restraints and develop less restrictive alternatives
that achieve given objectives without limiting constructive competition. It can
be used to evaluate existing or new laws and regulations - across a country's
economy or in a sector such as the cotton industry.
A full competition assessment includes: 1) clearly
identifying policy objectives, 2) identifying alternative regulations that
would achieve the same objectives, 3) evaluating the competitive effects of
each alternative, and 4) comparing the impacts of each
alternative. Within the toolkit there is also a Competition Checklist that
serves as a strong starting place as it helps entities to screen for laws and
regulations that have the potential to restrain competition so they can focus
on areas of most concern. The checklist and toolkit focus on identifying laws
or regulations that could potentially have one of the following three
effects:
1.
Limit the number of suppliers by:
-
Granting exclusive rights to a supplier
-
Establishing license, permit or authorization
processes that are stricter than necessary for consumer protection
-
Limiting the ability of certain types of suppliers
to engage in the business, often due to geographic relevance or supplier size
-
Creating high entry costs thus limiting entry of
small or medium sized companies
-
Creating geographic barriers for suppliers to
provide goods or services, invest capital or supply labor such as limiting the
flow of goods or services across jurisdictions
2.
Limit the ability of suppliers to compete by:
-
Controlling or significantly influencing the prices
for goods or services - minimum prices prevent low-cost suppliers from
providing better value to consumers while maximum prices can reduce incentives
for suppliers to innovate or improve quality
-
Limiting freedom of suppliers to advertise or
market themselves that can lead to false or misleading advertising or are so
broad they unduly restrict competition
-
Setting quality standards above what consumers
require and that advantage certain suppliers such as requiring specific
technologies that are only available or affordable to certain suppliers
-
Raising costs of production for some suppliers
relative to others such as "grandfather clauses" that exempt existing suppliers
from certain regulatory or technology requirements
3.
Reduce the incentive of suppliers to compete
vigorously by:
-
Creating a system of self-regulation or
co-regulation as this can often result in the creation of anti-competitive
impacts
-
Requiring information on supplier outputs, prices,
sales or costs to be published which could be improperly used by large
suppliers to monitor - and possibly undercut - competitors' market behavior
-
Exempting the activities of a particular group of
suppliers from general competition law
-
Reducing mobility of customers between suppliers
through "switching costs"
While this toolkit is intended for governments' use, it
can be applied by other entities that have a vested interest in government
trade policies, such as the cotton industry or some of its members.
Alternatively, industry members that feel they are disadvantaged by conditions
of anti-competition, especially in OECD countries, can use the toolkit as a
framework to work with a government to address their concerns.
Question
Is
the toolkit useful in the context of the cotton industry? If so, should its use
be encouraged?
