Wrong numbers

Difficulties in estimating the welfare gains from regulation

Regulators and their government masters are under some obligation to demonstrate that their interventions actually benefit consumers. The Competition Commission's inquiry into mobile phone call charges illustrates the pitfalls. The Commission's attempts to quantify the welfare gains of its proposals, which have attracted widespread interest amongst European regulators, suffered from defects that led to a serious over-estimation of the potential benefits from regulation. This bulletin explores the weaknesses in the Commission's analysis.

frontier bulletin - wrong numbers.pdf

Druckansicht

BACK