Competition policy and entrepreneurship development : some international comparisons

What impact does competition policy have on entrepreneurship? An effective competition regime should theoretically facilitate an open, competitive environment in which new market entrants can flourish and give rise to high levels of entrepreneurial activity. But is this really the case? In this article, we test this argument by investigating whether the presence of a large suite of competition laws, and/or a highly ranked national competition policy, is significantly correlated to high levels of entrepreneurship. Twenty-one countries were examined, using three existing indices—the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the Global Competition Review and the Antitrust Index. Surprisingly, the results indicate that there is no discernible correlation between the level of entrepreneurship and highly-ranked competition policy.