Discussion Papers Competition Policy and Law

This paper reviews regulatory and competition developments in last one year (March 2017onwards) in DFS sector in select Asian countries. The objective is to understand the focus of regulatory agencies, their approach to competition in the sector, strategy to promote DFS, and challenges which remain. In the review, four countries have been chosen from the east Asian region: China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines; and three countries have been chosen from the south Asian region: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Promotion of digital payments has been stated objective of the Government of India. In the last one year, the government has broadly used three types of tools to promote digital payments. These are: financial, operational and regulatory.
The sections below examine the application and effectiveness of these tools with special focus on the developments that took place from September 2017-January 2018.

The aim of the paper is to, therefore, highlight the possible approaches that the DoT, Government of Gujarat could consider for the development of an inter-city public transport regulator in Gujarat (Gujarat Inter-city Transport Regulatory Authority).

This purpose of this paper is to act as a reference for policymakers and implementers to better understand the good practices in urban bus transport reforms. The need for developing this paper was felt in the Diagnostic Phase (Phase I) of the project under which this discussion paper has been made. The primary objective of the CREW project is to demonstrate the benefits of competition reforms for consumers and producers, so that greater attention and support is provided by the policymakers. With scarce resources, policymakers worldwide are faced with the challenge of deciding where to allocate the resources in a manner that will maximise the net welfare gains of the population.

This paper builds upon the CREW Project’s findings in relation to the intercity bus transport system in Gujarat, India. The existing project analysed the interstate bus transport system in Gujarat with an emphasis on areas where the introduction of competition could potentially increase performance outcomes. The goal of this paper is to understand why the existing inefficiencies exist and how to overcome political opposition to introducing reforms into the sector.

The OECD Recommendation of the Council Concerning Effective Action against Hard Core Cartels adopted on March 25, 1998 defined ‘hard-core cartel’ as“…an anticompetitive agreement, anticompetitive concerted practice, or anticompetitive arrangement by competitors to fix prices, make rigged bids (collusive tenders), establish output restrictions or quotas, or share or divide markets by allocating customers, suppliers, territories or lines of commerce.”

The paper identifies inadequate awareness and lack of competition culture as stumbling blocks to the successful adoption of competition policy and law by emerging economies. The paper also clarifies implementation modalities, such as the shaping of the content of competition policy and law and the empowerment of competition authorities needed for effective implementation of the competition law.

pp 55, #1001, Rs 200/US$30, ISBN 978-81-8257-146-4

The paper recommends that the decision to formalise the informal sector should be based on a cost-benefit analysis. It goes on to elaborate various methods of formalisation: reduction in the number of procedures/clearances involved or time involved in registration of firms in the formal sector, extent of corruption that determines the magnitude of bribery involved in the same process; and reduction of disincentives such as high tax rates, coupled with enhancement of incentives such as credit leveraging and entrepreneurial assistance/training provided by the government to the formal sector.

The paper identifies the relevant competition problems and suggests a way forward for international cooperation to deal with them. It suggests that a brand new organization, dedicated solely to competition issues under the auspices of the UN, will be most suitable.

pp 68, #0506, Rs.100/US$25,
ISBN: 81-8257-055-7