Strategies for Increasing Market Access Under Regulatory heterogeneity

If the “contestability” of markets is the long-run aim of international economic co-operation, tackling regulatory barriers to international economic intercourse is going to become a prominent policy activity. And a permanent one. And a very demanding one. The word "tackling" is somewhat imprecise. The purpose of this paper is to show how and why rising policy ambitions with respect to the "tackling" of regulatory barriers almost certainly will imply significantly rising demands on national and emerging international regulatory systems. In theory one can develop a far less demanding perspective, but the conditions for a more relaxed view are unlikely to be fulfilled in the coming years. The groundwork of this paper is found in Alan Sykes' own paper for this brainstorming session, which in turn, is based on his insightful recent book ). The present paper is complementary, in the sensethat it focuses on the case of “deep” economic integration, whereas Professor Sykes concentrates on “shallow” economic integration, or indeed, co-operation. From an OECD and, especially a WTO perspective, “deep” integration may not necessarily be the aim or the framework of reference. The value-added of the present paper can be found in a review of some of the lessons that the European experience with deep economic integration has generated in a long process of “learning-by-doing”. These lessons tend to contrast starkly with those emerging from the Sykes paper. Such contrasts are not due to fundamental differences of view between the authors with respect to "shallow" co-operation, but to the radically greater ambitions of “deep” integration. An additional benefit may be that the present paper also clarifies the demands that may be placed on the international and national regulatory systems if “policed decentralisation” is to work effectively in regard to trade in goods and services. In this respect the paper should be seen as an extension of Sykes' contribution.