Towards Inclusive Competition Analyses: The Questions We Overlook

One of the stated goals of competition policy and antitrust enforcement is to maintain balance and fairness in markets by preventing harm from unchecked market power. However, most traditional competition analyses do not consider how marginalized consumers or businesses in a society may be impacted differently or experience more harm than market participants with more social or economic privilege. Finding ways to address this analytical gap will prevent antitrust enforcement from perpetuating existing systems of inequality in the economy and society more broadly, while bringing competition policy closer to its stated goal of restoring balance in the marketplace. This paper provides examples of questions currently missing from most competition analyses, as well as examples of existing models of inclusive competition enforcement from across the world that can serve as blueprints for incorporating these missing analytical questions and expanding the scope of antitrust regulation in other jurisdictions.

By Maria Stoyadinova¹

I. INTRODUCTION

One of the stated goals of competition policy and antitrust enforcement is to maintain balance and fairness in markets by preventing harm from unchecked market power.² Although competition analyses generally focus on the impacts business conduct has on consumer or social welfare, they traditionally do not evaluate how marginalized consumers or businesses in a society may be impacted differently or experience more harm in the marketpl