Competition Law and the Welfare State

In social market economies, specific goods, such as education and health-care, are taken out of the marketplace and provided to all citizens on a strictly egalitarian basis. The provision of goods or services outwith the market context might suggest competition law has no role, since a pre-requisite to the application of competition law is market activity. The purpose of this paper is to explain why competition law applies, and ought to apply, in the context of welfare provision. It argues that competition law has relevance not only in relation to “markets” properly so called but extends to cover all systems in which there is an “incentive to improve.” The main challenge then becomes to develop and adapt competition law and its enforcement for contexts in which all the features of a market properly so called are not present