Appropriately designed Product Market Regulation (PMR) is essential to enhance productivity, boost economic growth and increase welfare. Regulation is needed to address market failures and guarantee the health and safety of consumers. However, by limiting the entry and expansion of firms, a too...

The economic value of upstream research outcomes has raised increasing attention. Not only are these outcomes central to the development of many innovations, but they are also the object of many transactions in technology. This note discusses a few representative papers that try to better...

The increased adoption of digital technologies has been transforming the Spanish economy. The COVID-19 crisis is expected to speed up this process. The new digital strategy, ‘Digital Spain 2025’, features a number of ambitious objectives in a timely manner. There is a need to promote digital...

The development of formal ICT standards is a challenging form of collaborative innovation, combining consensus decision making and R&D rivalry. To supplement this formal standard setting process, it has thus become frequent that part of the involved firms creates ad hoc consortia to better align...

This paper examines problems of entry, exit and competition in Ukrainian product markets. It finds that Ukraine still has too little of all three, and that exit mechanisms, in particular, function poorly. Since impediments to entry and exit are largely the product of excessive and ill...

This paper examines problems of entry, exit and competition in Ukrainian product markets. It finds that Ukraine still has too little of all three, and that exit mechanisms, in particular, function poorly. Since impediments to entry and exit are largely the product of excessive and ill...

Digital markets have raised a number of new competition challenges. Ex-post competition policy appears not to be able to address them in their entirety and with the necessary speed. There is considerable consensus, among academics and policy-makers, that ex-ante regulatory policies are needed to...

A competition-friendly business regulatory environment is essential for the well-functioning of markets. It ensures that important policy goals are addressed, and market failures tackled. However, regulation can also create barriers to the entry and expansion of firms that may limit and distort...

Appropriately designed and implemented regulations are powerful tools for enhancing economic performance. A strong and sound regulatory framework can mitigate threats to health, safety, and the environment and address market imperfections. However, regulation can also create barriers to the...

This paper examines how import penetration affects firms' productivity growth taking into account the heterogeneity in firms' distance to the efficiency frontier and country differences in product market regulation. Using firm-level data for a large number of OECD countries, the analysis reveals...