Competition Buzz: Competition Policy in Latin America

By: Bruce M. Owen

This paper reports on recent developments in Latin American competition (antitrust) policy from the perspective of the role competition policy in supporting market reform.

Competition policy is an instance of the use of law to influence economic behavior. More than eighty nations have enacted antitrust laws in the last twenty years, mostly based on U.S. and E.U. models. A review of the antitrust activity in Latin America shows that all the larger countries have active competition agencies using modern economic theories and procedures that rely chiefly on administrative agencies rather than the courts. The issues mirror those in the developed world, especially competition problems in the infrastructure sectors. Formal laws and regulations also tend to mirror those in the developed world, perhaps inappropriately so in light of the differing economic scales and cultural traditions of Latin American countries.

Full Content: SSRN

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