Sector and Political Deregulation of Competition in Spain

In Spain, recent liberalizing tendencies occurred in the last decades have driven to striking changes in important industries, which used to be under monopolistic or regulated regimes. Whereas literature has widely paid attention to analyze the effects of liberalization on prices or competitiveness, few papers are dedicated to study the effects of liberalization on competition policy or on antitrust activity. This paper analyzes the case of Spain in the period from 1993 to 2005. An increase in collusion and trust practices in liberalized industries is observe, what requires an increase in the resources dedicated to antitrust policy. Finally, a disciplining effect due to the antitrust activities is also observed