Crisis Cartels

Resorting to crisis cartels would go against the two decade-long trend of tougher enforcement of cartels in developing and industrialised countries. As a practical matter, governments should have the procedures to evaluate such cartels during economic crises. Any exempted cartel should be granted a finite lifetime and be subject to review according to pre-specified criteria. Alternative measures are available to governments that can improve market outcomes more effectively than crisis cartels. During economic crises, competition authorities have an important role for competition advocacy. In markets where prices are volatile or where the consequences of volatility are severe (possibly for poor producers as well as for consumers) crisis cartels are an option but, again, not necessarily the only practical option. Financial market and other innovations should be considered as well, if they are available. The competition perspective has much to offer on important contemporary deliberations of developmentsensitive matters such as food security. Creating crisis cartels cannot tackle some of the competition-impeding practices that exacerbate food insecurity.