OECD Economics Department Working Papers

ISSN :
1815-1973 (online)
DOI :
10.1787/18151973
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Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.
 

Product Market Regulation

Extending the Analysis Beyond OECD Countries You or your institution have access to this content

Authors:
Anita Wölfl1, Isabelle Wanner, Oliver Röhn1, Giuseppe Nicoletti
Author Affiliations
  • 1: OECD, France

Publication Date
06 Oct 2010
Bibliographic information
No.:
799
Pages
51
DOI
10.1787/5km68g3d1xzn-en

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In this paper the recently updated product market regulation (PMR) indicators are extended to a larger set of countries including several non-OECD members. It investigates regulatory patterns in this extended set of countries as compared to the OECD countries and analyses the link between regulation and growth. On average, regulation is more restrictive of competition in non-member countries than in the OECD area. However, there exists considerable heterogeneity within this country grouping as concerns the level of the regulatory stance and its composition as well as the potential past evolution of regulatory processes. Furthermore, growth regressions provide evidence that less restrictive product market regulation is conducive to growth. An improvement of ½ index points of barriers to entrepreneurship would translate into approximately a 0.4% higher average annual rate of GDP per capita growth. However, the results also suggest that for countries that are less advanced, the potential growth benefits of enhancing product market competition may be impaired by other structural weaknesses. In particular, some restrictions of foreign trade and investment might be beneficial for growth in early stages of development.
Keywords:
product market regulation, growth regressions
JEL Classification:
  • K20: Law and Economics / Regulation and Business Law / General
  • L51: Industrial Organization / Regulation and Industrial Policy / Economics of Regulation
  • O11: Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
  • O43: Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity / Institutions and Growth