The OECD Recommendation on Competition Assessment calls for governments to introduce an appropriate process for the revision of existing or proposed public policies. 

The Recommendation acknowledges the importance of public policy objectives. It notes, however, that restrictions on competition needed for achieving public interest objectives are sometimes greater than necessary, when taking into account feasible alternatives and their cost.

For this reason, it is important to identify public policies that unduly restrict competition and develop specific and transparent criteria for evaluating suitable alternatives.

Many are the countries that carry out competition assessments. This helps them amend competition-distorting rules or develop new laws and regulations to improve competition in targeted sectors of their economies. The OECD has worked with many members and non-members to conduct reviews of the legislation of entire economic sectors, ranging from retail and wholesale trade to pharmaceuticals and construction services.

The OECD Competition Assessment Toolkit helps governments to make regulation more pro-competitive. It provides a method for identifying unnecessary restraints on market activities and developing alternative, less restrictive measures that still achieve government policy objectives.

It consists of three volumes.

Volume 1 sets down the toolkit principles, describing the benefits of competition, the checklist and examples of government processes.

Volume 2 provides detailed technical guidance on key issues to consider when performing a competition assessment.

Volume 3 is an operational manual that provides a step-by-step process for performing competition assessment.

The three volumes are available in English, French and Arabic.

The Toolkit can be used by governments in three main ways:

• By government bodies engaged in the review of existing policies and regulations, such as the competition authority in its evaluation of competitive impacts of regulations.
• In an overall evaluation of existing laws and regulations (in the economy as a whole or in specific sectors).
• In the evaluation of draft new laws and regulations (for example, through regulatory impact assessment programmes at the centre of government).

The Toolkit is designed for use in a decentralised fashion across government at both national and sub-national levels. The reason for designing the materials with this flexibility is that restrictions on competition can be implemented at many different levels of government and competition assessment can be helpful at all these levels.

The Toolkit materials are designed for use by officials with no specialised economics or competition policy training. Institutionally, potential users could include ministries, legislatures, offices of government leaders, state governments and outside evaluators of policy. The materials were developed with the active participation of many OECD delegations.

Comments on the Toolkit are welcome in order to prepare for future revisions. They can be sent to DAFCOMPContact@oecd.org.

As part of the Toolkit, the OECD Competition Assessment Checklist consists of a series of simple questions to screen for laws and regulations that have the potential to unnecessarily restrain competition. This screen focuses limited government resources on the areas where competition assessment is most needed.

It is available (A4, pdf) in several languages:

• Arabic 
• Chinese
• Croatian 
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hebrew 
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
• Spanish 
• Turkish
• Vietnamese

The toolkit was first created in 2007 and has been revised four times since. See below the chronology as well as former translations.

2007 - The Competition Assessment Toolkit is first published in two volumes, Vol. 1 Principles and Vol. 2 Guidance.

2010 - Both volumes are revised to include additional examples of the benefits of competition and an introduction to the Competition Checklist. This becomes Version 2.0.

2015 - A third revision sees the addition of a third volume - the Operational Manual - to provide a step-by-step guide for performing competition assessment. Volumes 1 and 2 were also revised. The operational manual supplements Volumes 1 and 2 and the three volumes jointly constitute the Competition Assessment Toolkit (Version 3.0).

2019 - All volumes in English are once again revised  in light of the changes brought about by digitalisation (Version 4.0, last version).

TRANSLATION OF PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF THE TOOLKIT

The 2010 and 2015 versions of the toolkit exist in many languages. They can be accessed  below: