Stephen Weymouth
Ph.D. Candidate
School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
and Department of Political Science
University of California, San Diego
Phone: 858.342.7687
CV Email SSRN
Welcome.
I am a Ph.D. candidate in
political science and
international affairs at UCSD. My research examines the causes and
consequences of institutional development in the context of global
economic integration. Publications to date explore the political
origins
of
financial market regulation, exchange rate regimes, and property rights
enforcement. My dissertation explains how social actors shape
competition policy reform in emerging economies. It is
supported by the National Science Foundation,
the UC Pacific Rim Research Program, and the Center on Pacific
Economies.
Dissertation Research
"Competition Politics: A Political Economy of Business Regulation
in Developing Countries."
Abstract: As tariffs and
capital controls have fallen, research in international political
economy is beginning to examine a host of behind-the-border obstacles
to trade and investment, including the anticompetitive practices of
incumbent businesses. My dissertation offers one of the first
explanations of variation in competition policies, defined as the
policies and institutions that regulate the entry of
firms---domestic and foreign---into an industry, among developing
countries. I argue that the salient political cleavage pits insiders
versus outsiders: a rent-preserving alliance of incumbent producers and
affiliated labor opposes robust competition policies that erode its
market dominance; a pro-competition coalition of consumers, unorganized
workers, and entrepreneurs favors reform. A simple formal model
illustrates that policymakers' commitment to competition policy depends
on the incentives generated by political institutions, which influence
the responsiveness of votes to economic competition.
I test the
empirical implications of the argument at several levels of analysis.
First, I develop an original dataset measuring variation in competition
(antitrust) agency design and independence in 129 developing countries
covering the period 1975-2006. Results from a variety of statistical
tests support the hypothesis that competition for political office
encourages delegation of regulatory authority to effective competition
agencies. In line with my theory, the results also suggest that
party-centered electoral institutions favor the interests of the
rent-preserving alliance by lowering the costs of lobbying. I do not
find that competition policy reform accompanies trade and capital
account liberalization, however, suggesting that persistent
anticompetitive practices may help explain why the globalization of
trade and finance has not lead to economic growth in many developing
countries.
Another
chapter uses firm-level survey data from
over 12,000 companies in 80 countries to test the determinants of
firms' lobbying influence. The results support the proposition that
firms in concentrated industries, and those organized in trade
associations, are more likely to overcome collective action hurdles to
influence policy. Case studies from Mexico, Colombia, and
Argentina employ an interrupted time-series research design to identify
how the introduction of competition policy reform affects industrial
evolution. I find that product market competition increases with the
government's commitment to competition policy effectiveness.