Integrating Regulatory and Antitrust Powers: Does It Work? Case Studies from Spain and Mexico

There are a wide variety of possible structures for regulatory regimes in countries. This article focuses on the analysis of multi-purpose regulators that combine regulatory and antitrust powers, such as the Mexican IFT and Cofece, as well as the Spanish CNMC. We focus on institutional design, review the existing literature on the pros and cons of single-purpose vs. multi-purpose regulators, and use the new Spanish and the Mexican institutional settings to contrast how such pros and cons are designed to operate on paper and how they do so in real life. Our goal is to look for evidence, at the very initial stage of the reforms in both these countries, of whether these countries are moving closer to a rule of law equilibrium.