Desregulamentação: a experiência norte-americana

Abstract

This paper presents and examines the main features of the US experience on deregulation. We chose three important cases: air transportation, tracking and telecommunication. The analysis rests on the Contestable Markets Theory (CMT) as it offers the main arguments for deregulation. The paper shows the deregulation process has actually improved productive efficiency and innovation besides towering prices. However, these results were achieved by new entry and inside competition, not by potential competition as CMT argues. After a period of deconcentration and a price war, the sectors are becoming even more concentrated than in the early SD's. The market shares of the leading furs are larger today, in spite of the higher number of firms in industry as a whole. The most important conclusions are that the dynamic efficiency should be considered, but concentration still matters. Therefore, the anti-trust policy should be effective and avoid mergers which may weaken the competition, either in its static sense or dynamic sense.