Schatan, Claudia --- "The Dynamics of Competition Policies in Small Developing Economies: The Central American Countries’ Experience" [2012] ELECD 828; in Whish, Richard; Townley, Christopher (eds), "New Competition Jurisdictions" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: New Competition Jurisdictions

Editor(s): Whish, Richard; Townley, Christopher

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857939517

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: The Dynamics of Competition Policies in Small Developing Economies: The Central American Countries’ Experience

Author(s): Schatan, Claudia

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

4. The dynamics of competition
policies in small developing
economies: the Central American
countries' experience
Claudia Schatan1

1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter analyses the competition policy experience of six Central
American small economies since the mid 1990s. The issues addressed
are mainly the challenges faced and the results attained in the building
of competition institutions and implementation of competition policy in
these countries, and the measures adopted to improve their performance
including law reforms (both planned and already implemented). Whether
the internationally standard competition policies adopted by these coun-
tries are the most appropriate for them, considering their size and the fact
that they are developing countries, is a question that will also be discussed
in this chapter.
The nations included in this study are Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Guatemala,2 Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.3 The forces that led
these countries to adopt competition policies arose from national and
international circumstances and varied from country to country. These
legal frameworks also appeared at different times, with an 11-year span
between the first (Costa Rica in 1995) and the most recent (Nicaragua in
2006), which meant that, in addition the existing competition law models


1 The opinions expressed by the author in this chapter do not necessarily

coincide with those of the Economic Commission of Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC).
2 Since Guatemala is the only country that still does not have a competition

legal framework, it will only be considered marginally in this chapter.
3 Belize geographically forms ...