Enhancing competition in a postrevolutionary Arab context : does the Turkish experience provide any lessons?

Abstract EN

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible role of the regulatory environment in enhancing competition in the post-revolutionary Arab societies, drawing on the experience of Turkey in the last decade.

It provides a review of some institutional measures, which include remedies such as privatization, delegation of authority (in particular to relatively independent regulatory agencies), a competition law and its enforcement, liberalization, stakeholder participation in governance and monitoring, and open and non-discriminatory procedures for public procurement.

The remedies also include forms of public-private participation schemes in order to attract private capital to finance the provision of public services, especially in infrastructure.

In this paper, these remedies will be referred to as the competition-enhancing reform package.

The paper uses Turkey as the main example from which useful lessons can hopefully be learnt.