Abstract

As governments open up markets to foreign trade through reducing or eliminating tariff barriers at the borders of countries, it is widely understood that the persistence of domestic market failures behind the border can work to undermine the efficiency and growth effects associated with liberalization (Bhagwati et al. 1971). Competition can be obstructed for a variety of structural and behavioural reasons and governments address the different restrictions of competition through different policies and legal instruments because, as this chapter notes, competition policy can also be used to promote a range of different trade and social policy objectives.