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

John Davies ()

De Economist, 2018, vol. 166, issue 1, No 2, 7-22

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Competition; Evaluation; Antitrust; Impact assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H83 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1007/s10645-017-9307-6

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