Impact of the CNMC's antitrust interventions: methodology and estimation for the period 2012-2022

Abstract

Impact assessments are a necessity for competition authorities, which need to quantify the benefits to society of their interventions. This paper first analyses the different types of assessments that can be carried out for this purpose, and then describes the methodology chosen to estimate the impact of the Spanish authority's activity. This methodology is aimed at estimating the direct savings generated by the prosecution of anti-competitive infringements and merger control by preventing the price increases that would have occurred without these interventions, and has been applied to the decisions of the Spanish competition authority between 2012-2022. The estimated savings, although varying across years, confirm that competition enforcement is highly beneficial for consumers.

Keywords:

impact assessment, public policy evaluation, competition policy

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