Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP7515
Authors: Joseph A. Clougherty
Abstract: Motivated by the general lack of empirical scholarship concerning the cross-national environment for competition policy, I present measures here of the overall resources dedicated to competition policy and the merger policy work-load for thirty-two antitrust jurisdictions over the 1992-2007 period. The data allow analysing a number of perceived trends in competition policy over the last two decades, and allow the generation of some factual insights concerning these trends: e.g., the budgetary commitment to competition policy in the cross-national environment for antitrust has substantially increased over this period; budgetary increases appear to be commensurate with increased antitrust workloads; yet, the role of economics does not appear to have substantially increased relative to the role of law. Moreover, I am also able to provide some evidence that budgetary commitments to antitrust institutions yield economic benefits in terms of improved economic growth: i.e., higher budgetary commitments to competition policy are associated with higher levels per-capita GDP growth.
Keywords: competition policy; growth; policy trends
JEL Codes: C23; K21; L40; O40
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Antitrust budgets have grown more robustly than national economies (L49) | Stronger commitment to competition policy (L49) |
| Increases in antitrust budgets (L49) | Increased workloads for antitrust authorities (L49) |
| Ratio of economists to lawyers (K00) | Complexity in competition policy (L49) |
| Increased budgetary commitments to competition policy (L49) | Higher per capita GDP growth (O49) |
| One standard deviation increase in antitrust budget (L49) | Average increase in economic growth (O49) |