Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Peña, Julián --- "Competition Policies in Latin America, Post-Washington Consensus" [2006] ELECD 545; in Marsden, Philip (ed), "Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust

Editor(s): Marsden, Philip

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845421816

Section: Chapter 28

Section Title: Competition Policies in Latin America, Post-Washington Consensus

Author(s): Peña, Julián

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

28 Competition policies in Latin America,
post-Washington Consensus
Julián Peña


Introduction
Although Latin America is a sweeping concept representing very different
political, economic, social and cultural realities, it has been possible until
recently to draw some common comparisons when analysing its competi-
tion policies or, better yet, the role of the state in the markets. However, in
the past few years, different approaches have been taken following the per-
ception of the collapse of the guiding consensus on government interven-
tion in the economies for Latin American countries.
The history of competition policy in Latin America may be divided into
three periods.1 A first period could be broadly drawn from the 1920s to the
1980s. Although most Latin American countries have been influenced by
free market ideals since their respective independence and some had anti-
monopoly legislation in the first decades of the twentieth century, this
period can be characterized by very active state intervention in the markets.
This intervention was manifested through various anticompetitive mechan-
isms such as state-owned monopolies, price controls or protectionist meas-
ures and inefficient government regulation. This has been the common
pattern in almost all of the countries of the region.
Although it is difficult to determine exactly when it began, most Latin
American countries adopted a set of competition policies influenced by the
Washington-based international financial organizations. This set of market-
oriented recommendations, known as the `Washington Consensus', repre-
sented the core policy that most governments implemented in ...