Share

Competition

Competition and Innovation - The Role of Innovation in Enforcement Cases

 

‌ 

Read the background note

  5 December 2023 & 6 March 2024

 

While there is long-standing view that competition drives innovation and that innovation, in turn, drives higher welfare and economic growth, there is no theoretical consensus on the precise relationship between these two important components of a market economy.

In June 2023, the OECD held a discussion on theoretical perspectives of the relationship between the two variables, what we mean by innovation, its origines and what types of innovation arise from competition. 

In December 2023 the OECD held a second roundtable on the topic to discuss how competition authorities incorporate innovation as part of their assessment in merger review and enforcement investigations. It focussed on aspects such as how they consider innovation when defining and examining markets, as well as when analysing the effects of conduct and transactions. The session reviewed cases where competition authorities used innovation-specific theories of harm, others where innovation was only considered as past of a standard analysis, and others where it was used as a justification for anti-competitive behaviour or as an efficiency claim.

The findings of these two discussions will be presented to the public at large during the 2024 edition of our OECD Competition Open Day on 6 March 2024.

This page contains information on the sessions held and all related materials.

See the full list of best practice roundtables on competition.

DECEMBER 2023 SESSION INFORMATION AND MATERIALS
Speakers

Simonetta Vezzoso Bio  Associate Professor, Economics Department, University of Trento

Douglas Melamed Bio  
Professor, Stanford Law School

Documents

OECD Background Note | Note de référence

Detailed summary of the discussion EN | FR

Executive summary with key findings EN | FR

 

Contributions from participating delegations

Brazil

Chinese Taipei

EU

Finland

Indonesia

Japan

Kazakhstan

Mexico

Poland

Spain

Türkiye

United States

BIAC

Summaries of Contributions

Presentations

Related material

Defining and Measuring Innovation for Competition Enforcement (2023) Link to an external site iconBlog by Aura Garcia Pabón

Merger review in emerging high innovation markets (2002)

Competition, Patents and Innovation I (2006)

Competition, Patents and Innovation II (2009)

Competition and disruptive innovation in financial markets (2015)

Disruptive innovations and competition law enforcement (2015)

Disruptive innovations and their effect on competition (2015)

Disruptive innovations in legal services (2016)

Competition and innovation in land transport (2016)

Radical Innovation in the Electricity Sector (2017)

See also

OECD best practice roundtables on competition

More OECD work on competition

JUNE 2023 SESSION INFORMATION AND MATERIALS

In June 2023, the OECD held a discussion on the relationship between competition and innovation to understand what we mean by innovation and what types of innovation arise from competition. Participants had the opportunity to learn about the key drivers of innovation, the role of competition policy in generating incentives to innovate or spreading innovation across industries. As there are many other factors that drive innovation, such as the role of financing agents, geographical considerations and network effects among others, the discussion was a first opportunity to explore how these factors interact with competition and what effects they have on competitive dynamics in those markets.

Speakers

Philippe Aghion Bio 
Professor at the College de France and at the London School of Economics

Chiara Criscuolo Bio  
Head of Division Productivity Innovation and Entrepreneurship Division, Science Technology and Innovation Directorate, OECD

Wolfgang Kerber Bio  
Professor of Economic Policy, Marburg University

Álvaro Parra Bio  
Assistant Professor, UBC Sauder School of Business

Carl Shapiro Bio  
Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Eva Sørensen Bio  
Professor at Roskilde University

Documents 

 

OECD Background Note | Note de référence de l'OCDE

Detailed summary of the discussion EN | FR

Executive summary with key findings EN | FR

Note by Wolfgang Kerber 

 

Contributions from participating delegations

Austria

BIAC

France EN | FR 

Kazakhstan

Presentations

 

Related Documents