Do product market reforms work? Assessing regulatory changes impacting competition

We create a new dataset that characterizes publicly released studies of product market reforms implemented from 1932 to 2011. We then examine the size and origins of differences in estimated impacts based on an OECD classification scheme for potentially competitive restrictions of regulation. The mean impact from switching to pro-competitive regulatory settings is a 19 per cent price decline. Competition-restricting regulations that are directed at specific societal objectives, such as health, safety, education, the environment, and financial stability or protection, have lower price increases than the price declines from regulatory changes creating greater competition. Policymakers can use these estimates to better predict the potential net welfare effects when balancing the competition-restricting effects of regulation against other societal objectives.