IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mpg/wpaper/2011_03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Antitrust Law and the Promotion of Democracy and Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Niels Petersen

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)

Abstract

There is a considerable debate in the legal literature about the purpose of antitrust institutions. Some argue that antitrust law merely serves the purpose of economic growth, while others have a broader perspective on the function of antitrust, maintaining that the prevention of economic concentration is an important means to promote democratization and democratic stability. This contribution seeks to test the empirical assumptions of this normative debate. Using panel data of 154 states from 1960 to 2007, it analyzes whether antitrust law actually has a positive effect on democracy and economic growth. The paper finds that antitrust law has a strongly positive effect on the level of GDP per capita and economic growth. However, there is no significant positive effect on the level of democracy. It is suggested that these results might be due to the current structure of existing antitrust laws, which are designed to promote economic efficiency rather than to prevent economic concentration.

Suggested Citation

  • Niels Petersen, 2011. "Antitrust Law and the Promotion of Democracy and Economic Growth," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_03, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2011_03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2011_03online.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2006. "Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 319-324, May.
    2. Dutz, Mark A. & Vagliasindi, Maria, 2000. "Competition policy implementation in transition economies: An empirical assessment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 762-772, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    2. Pauline Grosjean & Claudia Senik, 2011. "Democracy, Market Liberalization, and Political Preferences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 365-381, February.
    3. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Zohal Hessami, 2017. "Political alignment and intergovernmental transfers in parliamentary systems: evidence from Germany," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 75-98, April.
    4. Paul Pelzl & Steven Poelhekke, 2023. "Democratization, leader education and growth: firm-level evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 571-600, December.
    5. Hallward-Driemeier,Mary C. & Kochanova,Anna & Rijkers,Bob, 2020. "Does Democratization Promote Competition? : Indonesian Manufacturing Pre and Post Suharto," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9112, The World Bank.
    6. Jens Hölscher & Johannes Stephan, 2009. "Competition and Antitrust Policy in the Enlarged European Union: A Level Playing Field?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 863-889, September.
    7. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2007. "The growth effect of democracy: Is it heterogenous and how can it be estimated?," Working Papers 322, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    8. Barros, Pedro P. & Clougherty, Joseph A. & Seldeslachts, Jo, 2013. "Europeanization of EU member-state competition policy: The commission's leadership role," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 41-51.
    9. Phoebe W. Ishak & Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2022. "Oil price shocks, protest, and the shadow economy: Is there a mitigation effect?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 298-321, July.
    10. Omar Jraid Mustafa Alhanaqtah & Veronika Vladimir Alexey Alhanaqtah, 2018. "Governance Indicators for Strategic Business Decisions: Diversity of Western Asian Countries in Terms of Democracy," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 8(3), pages 378-393, March.
    11. Klaus Friesenbichler & Michael Peneder, 2016. "Innovation, competition and productivity," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(3), pages 535-580, July.
    12. Kulaksizoglu, Tamer, 2004. "Measuring the Effectiveness of Competition Policy: Evidence from the Turkish Cement Industry," MPRA Paper 357, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1divsbu8t888r9vqektjbmlqoa is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Michael H. Böheim & Klaus S. Friesenbichler, 2016. "Exporting the Competition Policy Regime of the European Union: Success or Failure? Empirical Evidence for Acceding Countries," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 569-582, May.
    15. Diego Aboal, 2020. "Electoral systems and economic growth," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 781-805, October.
    16. NARITA Yusuke & SUDO Ayumi, 2021. "Curse of Democracy: Evidence from 2020," Discussion papers 21034, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    17. Dalibor Eterovic & Nicolas Eterovic, 2010. "Political Competition vs. PoliticalParticipation: Effects on Government's Size," Working Papers wp_006, Adolfo Ibáñez University, School of Government.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    19. Bhattacharyya, Sambit & Hodler, Roland, 2014. "Do Natural Resource Revenues Hinder Financial Development? The Role of Political Institutions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 101-113.
    20. Gennady Bilych, 2013. "Democratic Changes and Economic Growth," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 3(1), pages 461-486, June.
    21. Michael Storper, 2010. "Why Does a City Grow? Specialisation, Human Capital or Institutions?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(10), pages 2027-2050, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2011_03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marc Martin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mppggde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.