Convergence in Emerging Markets: The Case of Abuse of Dominant Position in Competition Policy

The literature on competition policy in emerging markets is divided into two conflicting schools of thought. One school argues in favour of convergence with the efficiency-based policy, framework in advanced countries. The other school advocates a broad competition policy specific to the requirements of the emerging markets, based on both economic and non-economic goals. Taking the case of India, an emerging market economy, with special focus on abuse of dominant position, this paper shows that there is a tendency towards convergence to the efficiency-based approach of advanced countries with some weightage given to domestic goals. This could be attributed to emerging market’s increased requirement of the efficiency-based analysis and growing interdependence on other economies in the post-liberalization period, on one hand, and lack of expertise in the emerging markets to develop indigenous competition law, on the other. Moreover, owing to more similarity in economic, regulatory and institutional conditions, there is convergence with the competition policy in the European Union rather than that in the United States. The article also shows that the specific convergence approach adopted by emerging markets may not always be in their domestic interest.JEL: K21, L41, O1