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‘Outcome’ Assessment: What Exactly Are We Measuring? A Personal Reflection on Measuring the Outcomes from Competition Agencies’ Interventions

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  • John Davies

Abstract

The UK and Dutch competition agencies were pioneers in Europe in publishing annual assessments of the ‘outcomes’ from their work. These countries had new competition laws to report on and a strong culture of public sector evaluation. Other countries have followed, with different approaches but enough common ground for OECD to develop a standard methodology. However, the measures are simplistic: they miss many important aspects of ‘outcomes’. I nonetheless argue that these assessments are worth carrying out but they should be recognised for what they are: a rather sophisticated measure of agency activity, rather than a simplistic assessment of outcomes.

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  • John Davies, 2018. "‘Outcome’ Assessment: What Exactly Are We Measuring? A Personal Reflection on Measuring the Outcomes from Competition Agencies’ Interventions," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 7-22, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:decono:v:166:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10645-017-9307-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10645-017-9307-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Svetlana Avdasheva & Dina Tsytsulina & Svetlana Golovanova & Yelena Sidorova, 2015. "Discovering the Miracle of Large Numbers of Antitrust Investigations in Russia: The Role of Competition Authority Incentives," HSE Working papers WP BRP 26/PA/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
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    5. George Symeonidis, 2008. "The Effect of Competition on Wages and Productivity: Evidence from the United Kingdom," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 134-146, February.
    6. Enrico Alemani & Caroline Klein & Isabell Koske & Cristiana Vitale & Isabelle Wanner, 2013. "New Indicators of Competition Law and Policy in 2013 for OECD and non-OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1104, OECD Publishing.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Competition; Evaluation; Antitrust; Impact assessment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

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