In recent years, a tendency on the part of different authorities to consolidate has been noted worldwide. Competition agencies are merging with consumer protection agencies and/or regulators in order to establish more effective and less expensive public systems. Accordingly, since the first roundtable meeting on the optimal design of a competition agency, held in February 2003, OECD has organized two more roundtables concerning changes in institutional design of competition authorities in less than one year – one in December 2014, and one in June 2015.
A...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Dec
10
Apr
13
Economists disagree whether it was a good decision to reestablish the Georgian competition authority. When some years ago it was removed, the underlying logic was that a non-existing authority cannot be corrupt, and, more importantly, cannot harm the economy through misguided decisions. Assuming that corruption will not be a problem for the competition authority, neither now nor in the future, regulating markets is still a highly delicate issue which yields many possibilities to go wrong.
WHAT IS THE RELEVANT MARKET?
One of the central issues that have t...
Recent Comments
Actually, I had the pleasure of talking to a few people in the competition agency. They have a good understanding of the markets t... Read More
Tuesday, 14 April 2015 11:11 PM
Hi M, I agree that the sentence sounds somewhat condescending. You may be right that this advice is unnecessary -- I do not know t... Read More
Wednesday, 15 April 2015 3:03 PM
Sep
23
About 9 months ago, we were already discussing the oddities of egg prices in Georgia (“The Georgian Egg of Discord”, by Giorgi Kelbakiani and Eric Livny). At that time, a huge volatility in the egg prices could be explained by interesting political dynamics. Under the UNM government, local producers of eggs were largely protected from external competition through non-tariff import barriers, called by the ministry of agriculture a “complete violation of law and international agreements”. However, through these measures, a relative stability of egg supply ...
Recent comment in this post
If you keep writing this kind of post then I will be very happy because this post is very good and I am very happy that I saw this... Read More
Thursday, 04 March 2021 7:07 AM
Apr
14
Imagine arriving at a provincial airport in an unnamed Central Asian country. You leave the terminal and go straight to row of waiting taxis. In your Lonely Planet you read that you should pay about $10 for what is a short taxi ride to the city center. You ask the first taxi driver and are quoted a fantasy price of $50. You try to bargain, to no avail. You go to the next taxi, and once again you are quoted $50. You finally go to the third taxi, and lo and behold, it’s the same price, $50. And you don’t even try to bargain anymore…
Now, imagine this to pl...
Recent Comments
Very interesting!
Monday, 14 April 2014 12:12 PM
agree, this is a very interesting post. Beyond the economics, I also wonder about the politics. Have you looked more into how the ... Read More
Monday, 14 April 2014 9:09 PM
There is nothing really in the law about the burden of proof, it's something that will become evident only once we see how cases a... Read More
Monday, 14 April 2014 10:10 PM
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