Seminar – Pro-Market Regulatory Reform: An Applied Method and Impact Analysis

Dr Sean Ennis, OECD Competition Division

Government regulations have the capacity to create excessive restrictions on business activity in a way that reduces competition. Policymakers need to consider whether reforms to promote competition are worthwhile and, if so, how to create such reforms. This paper outlines an operational method for reviewing regulations to identify potential restrictions on competition and develop alternative, less restrictive policies. The method presented has been used in large scales reviews of regulation in 16 sectors in four economies. The question remains of whether pro-competitive reforms yield substantial benefits. Based on an ex post study of pro-competitive reforms, price impacts are in many cases comparable to the elimination of cartels. One explanation could be that both private cartels and government anti-competitive regulation can equally create quantity and entry constraints that are the underlying generator of anti-competitive price impacts.

Speaker bio

Dr Sean F. Ennis is currently a Senior Economist in the Competition Division of the OECD engaged in economic analysis for competition law and policy, including consumer impacts, cartels, regulated and digital sectors and fines and damages. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Competition Commission of Mauritius from 2011 to 2013. He leads the OECD work on competition assessment of regulations.

Before that, he served as a Senior Economist at the OECD, where he initiated and led the OECD’s competition assessment project, an international effort to develop and foster best practice for identifying and removing the anticompetitive effects of regulation. He also was responsible for OECD work on competition and reform in regulated industries in support of the OECD’s Working Party on Competition and Regulation. Prior to that, he worked as an economist at both the European Commission’s DG Competition and at the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, developing economic analyses for competition law investigations. Sean Ennis received a BA (Hons) in Economics from King’s College, University of Cambridge and a PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.