Domestic bias in the regulation of restrictive business practices

Double standards in national policies, namely, on the one hand, that restrictive business practices affecting the domestic market should be strictly controlled and in many cases prohibited, since they impede economic growth and efficiency, while, on the other hand, ignoring or fostering the use of such practices when they have effects outside the domestic economy, notably in respect of exports, have increasingly been used as a government commercial policy device to regulate world trade. These double standards have enabled governments of a number of developed market-economy countries to resort to growing protectionism via the back door. Instead of raising tariffs or introducing non-tariff barriers to regulate import competition, industries and governments in certain importing developed market-economy countries have brought pressure on industries and governments in exporting countries to limit (and fix) prices for exports, leading to the establishment or strengthening of export cartel arrangements, in order to implement so-called "voluntary export restraints" or orderly marketing arrangements agreed between the parties concerned.