Toward a Fairer Society: Inequality and Competition Policy in Developing Asia

Arsenio Balisacan

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Rising inequality poses a serious threat to sustained growth and poverty reduction in developing Asia. Many countries in the region have adopted competition policy—also known as antitrust—to promote economic welfare by protecting competitive processes, as well as in consideration of public interests, including social equity. This paper uses the Philippine experience to illustrate the conceptual and institutional issues in operationalising competition policy for development. Competition policy in the Philippines has historical roots in its struggle for economic and social reforms aimed at achieving inclusive development. Properly framing competition policy to stay close to its core guiding principle is key to its effectiveness in contributing to inclusive development. The paper concludes that, in the Philippine context, adhering to consumer welfare standards in competition policy promotes a fairer social outcome (i.e., reduction of income inequality and poverty) while improving economic efficiency.

Keywords: Competition policy; antitrust; welfare; income distribution; economic development; Philippines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I30 K21 L40 O15 O53 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/100797/2/MPRA_paper_100797.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Toward a fairer society: inequality and competition policy in developing Asia (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:100797

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().