The goals of competition policy

This chapter addresses the choice of goals for competition law and policy. It describes goals based on economic theory (maximizing consumer welfare, aggregate welfare or producer welfare), fairness in the competition and promoting and protecting the competitive process itself. The chapter argues that the last of these options is the best basic goal because neither economic theory nor fairness provide a coherent basis for policy over time given the dynamics of markets and the ambiguity of both economic theory and fairness. But even the goal of promoting and protecting the competitive process is not self-defining because determining the appropriate degree of legal intervention is dependent on the assessment of the risks to the competitive process if there were no intervention. Given the many examples of market failure, the chapter concludes that the legal system must provide significant oversight of the competitive process in order to ensure the long-term viability of the competitive process.