Incorporating Gender as a Prioritization Principle and Project Selection Criterion in Competition Agencies

This article presents the preliminary results of an OECD-sponsored project to consider how competition agencies might achieve greater gender inclusiveness in setting priorities and in selecting specific projects. The Article identifies obstacles to successful implementation and offers initial suggestions for surmounting them. The approach suggested here includes the achievement of greater gender diversity at all levels of a competition agency – especially top leadership – and in agency teams responsible for prioritization and project selection. The paper also suggests that careful study of past agency practice (e.g. in setting budgets, allocating resources, and choosing cases and studies) may identify useful antecedents for a more gender inclusive program. Finally, the paper proposes greater emphasis on the dismantling of artificial entry barriers that tend to block new business development by women.

By William E. Kovacic¹

Nearly three years ago, the Competition Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) launched a Gender Inclusive Competition Policy initiative “to explore whether a gender lens might in fact help deliver a more effective competition policy by identifying additional relevant features of the market, and of the behavior of consumers and firms, as well as whether a more effective competition policy can help address gender inequality.”² To this end, the OECD is sponsoring a collection of research projects