Product market regulation in the non-manufacturing sectors of OECD countries: measurement and highlights This paper describes a new set of indicators that measure differences in the regulation of non-manufacturing sectors of OECD countries over the past three decades. The indicators focus on...

This paper investigates the role played by deregulation on firms’ investment decisions in infrastructure sectors. The analysis covers the period 1980-2006, which was characterised by increased liberalisation and privatisation across OECD countries. We assess the relationship of different...

Regulatory reform efforts in a broad range of industries have resulted in increased importance of competitive forces as a means to allocate resources and improve economic efficiency. A number of indicators suggest that such forces have been stronger in the United States than in most other OECD...

Offshore natural-gas discoveries have released Israel from complete reliance on imported primary fuels and are allowing for a cleaner energy mix. Furthermore, additional production will soon come on stream, and there is a reasonable chance of new commercially viable gas finds, and possibly of...

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken competition and has left a legacy of government...

Empirical work shows that competition is important for promoting economic growth. However, in Japan the promotion of competition has long been compromised by ministerial guidance and exemptions from the competition law. Thus, the level and growth of productivity have been low in many...

This paper assesses Brazil’s regulatory framework and agencies for several network industries (electricity, oil and gas, and water and sanitation). Private investment can be encouraged by tackling regulatory uncertainty in many areas. To this end, recent initiatives include a new regulatory...

The potential to strengthen productivity growth and enhance consumer welfare through more competition is large in the energy and railway sectors. Establishing stronger vertical separation between network access provision and potentially competitive services will be the main challenge for Germany...

This paper discusses the current state of product market competition in Iceland, including the legal and regulatory framework, and suggests directions for further improvement. Given the size of the economy, efficiency considerations dictate high concentration in many markets, and preventing...

The OECD Growth Study and other empirical work have shown that the strength of competition in product markets plays an important role in the economic growth process as well as contributing to a more efficient allocation of resources in a static sense. More intense competition is likely to...