Exploring the nexus between competition and the sustainable development goals in OECD countries

In recent years, the OECD has been embroiled in discussions on the role of competition law in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, it is crucial to understand whether the SDGs and competition work in harmony or are at odds before devising the best strategies for tackling sustainability challenges in competition laws and policies. For this purpose, this paper aims to empirically explore the interplay between sustainability and competition to fill the gap between economic theory and observed data through a study of a panel of 18 OECD countries from 2000 to 2019. The non-declining inclusive wealth approach serves as the foundation for our model to evaluate sustainability. The SDG Index, which incorporates the socio-economic and environmental aspects of sustainability, is used as a gauge of the SDGs' achievement, while the Index of Economic Freedom is used as a proxy for competition. The results of the feasible generalized least squares and panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) methods reveal that competition has no effect on the SDGs. Our empirical findings also show that the achievement of the SDGs is positively impacted by per capita gross national income and negatively impacted by population growth. The PCSE method's results indicate that the SDGs are not significantly affected by natural capital depletion, as measured by natural resource rents. Besides, the panel causality analysis confirms the existence of a causal relationship between the SDGs and competition. Our empirical results have two implications. First, they show that competition laws are still far from being an effective tool capable of achieving the SDGs. Second, they drive the competition authorities of OECD countries to devote greater efforts to sustainability-related issues in the enforcement of competition law.