소비자정책과 경쟁정책의 체계적 연계

Abstract

Consumer policies and competition policies pursue a common goal - the enhancement of consumer welfare, although they take different approaches to achieve the goal. Therefore, the two policies should be complementary and reinforce each other. However, there are often tensions between them in practice. For example, consumer policies may unnecessarily restrict competition and competition polices may be implemented without sufficient consideration of their impact upon consumer interests. In particular, a lot of Korean consumer protection legislations are traditionally characterized paternalistic in opposition to consumer policies under liberal approaches, which makes the tension more probable. In Korea, consumer policies and competition policies were institutionally integrated in 2008. This will provide both ample opportunities for synergies of the two policies and big challenges for harmonization between the two. As the two are now integrated in a single institution (the Korea Fair Trade Commission), large benefits can be expected such as gains from combining and implementing the two policies more flexibly and gains from sharing expertise between the two policy areas. In particular, the Korea Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act is unique in providing for consumer protective measures against exploitative unfair business practices. For realizing those benefits, some policy suggestions can be made. Stimulation of intra-institutional exchange of information and experiences, systematic review of consumer policies from the perspective of competition policies, involvement of consumer policy experts in the competition policy process, and active use of an economic analysis in the fields of consumer policies are among the priorities.