Three cheers for the OECD

Some people wonder about the point of the OECD: an expensive talking shop? A rich countries' club? A hand-wringing observer on the sidelines? I'm generally more positive: lots of good ideas and solid research come out of Paris, even if member governments don't always pay them the attention they should.

Which even the OECD itself recognises: here, for example, is a rather sad graph from the handout that came with the OECD's latest Economic Outlook, which looks at how many of the growth-enhancing reforms the OECD has suggested that countries should undertake have actually been carried out.

Conversely, governments can sometimes smuggle policy ideas into the OECD (and the IMF, and other institutions) and can then give themselves the protective cover of "See? This isn't me and my political agenda, this is the international experts talking".

But in any event, I was delighted to see the OECD (prompted or otherwise) picking up on some good ideas about improvements to our competition policy. They're in the OECD's latest Economist Survey of New Zealand, which you can read online here.

First, they've endorsed the idea of the Commerce Commission being able to conduct proactive "market studies" in a well-designed way. As they put it

market studies...would help markets work better, especially when obstacles and distortions to competition are not caused by competition law violations...Clear definition of the purpose and goals of market studies, the involvement of stakeholders, adequate funding and the capacity to demand information (including confidential information) will be important to drive the success of this initiative (p105)

I've been banging on about this for the last couple of years (here and here and here and...) as has the likes of our Productivity Commission. This is an idea that's obvious, simple, desirable, cheap, best practice, and well-canvassed (MBIE's done an exhaustive tyre-kicking consultation), and it's high time for MBIE Minister Simon Bridges to fire the starting gun.

The OECD has also had something to say about our "abuse of market power" legislation (the vexed section 36 of our Commerce Act). It's a bit disingenuous of the OECD to say "The legislative treatment of firms with market power should be reviewed" (p106), since they must know that MBIE's tyre-kicking has included a review of s36: they probably mean it more pejoratively, with a heavy emphasis on the should. In any case they go on to say

Currently, New Zealand's (and Australia's) treatment of firms with market power is unusual. Firms are prohibited from taking advantage of market power only if they are doing so for the purpose of restricting entry, preventing or deterring competitive conduct or eliminating a competitor. Framing the law around intent can be problematic as proving the purpose of commercial conduct has proven difficult for competition regulators. In Australia amending legislation has been drafted to add a mechanism that brings firms under scrutiny based on the effect of commercial conduct on competition (an "effects test") (p106)

There must have been a very funny backroom editorial debate before they settled on our "unusual" regime: "unorthodox" and "idiosyncratic" must have been plausible contenders, but however you phrase it, we're in a policy backwater of our own, and we need to get out of it.

This isn't, to be fair, as much of a walk in the park as the case for market studies: every competition policy regime struggles with these issues. But if the general tone of the OECD's advice is, go the Aussie route with their 'Harper' amendments, I'm fully behind them, for reasons I've also been pushing over the years (especially here, but also here and here and...). Another one for Minister Bridges to put to bed. And he might as well get on with it, as we'd be better off with the Aussie scheme than the European one, which we might end up having to consider if we're serious about the proposed NZ - EU free trade agreement.

There's other good competition stuff in the OECD's report. It says

Other actions to support competition include passing the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, which would clarify the scope of prohibited cartel behaviour and remove exemptions from the Commerce Act that allow price fixing in international shipping. As argued in previous Surveys, the exemption from Commerce Act provisions for airlines under the Civil Aviation Act should also be revoked (pp105-6)

Totally correct. Why as a trading nation we ever thought it would be a good idea to hobble ourselves with self-inflicted impediments to our freight and tourism is beyond me. It's archaic. Archaic and benign, I quite like: Latin, organ music, stamp collecting. Archaic, inefficient, and anti-competitive, not so much.

Finally, they've got a shopping list of ideas around the Commerce Commission itself, all of which look sensible to me. They've repeated, for example, their previous advice to have "periodic independent assessments of Commerce Commission decisions" (p106). The Commission has been quite good at doing its own, even though some folks (not me) believe it's a waste of space: they say, you can't easily see what would have happened, absent the Commission's decision. It's nonetheless worth attempting, and making it independent would be an improvement.

And they've got various other good governance ideas. "There are no limits", they say on p106, "on reappointment of Commissioners, which is contrary to the OECD's best practice principles. Continuity and institutional memory would be better served through staggered terms for Commissioners and the Chief Executive". As someone who served an, um, unusually long term, I'd have hated it.

But that is why it's such a good idea.