This is in line with the Panama Declaration , which resulted from the meeting of all competition agencies of the Americas in October 1998. The nature and depth of international cooperation varies according to the stage of institutional development. Most countries in the world are at very early stages and can benefit enormously from technical assistance. Indeed, there is a political market failure in terms of the amount of resources allocated to competition offices. Due to the free-rider problem, competition agencies tend to be underfunded.
Equilibrium obtains at a point of institutional underinvestment.
Since there are economies of scale and of learning for the implementation of competition laws, at the earliest stages new competition offices should have more resources, not less. Furthermore, the competition policy agenda is now more extensive and complex than it was a decade ago. New issues such as interaction with the regulatory agencies and the WTO agenda have to be addressed at the same time as basic staff training and the acquisition of computers. The competition official in mature jurisdictions has to apply competition principles given a stable and adequate pre-existing environment. The competition official in a developing country has to help create such an environment for effective application of competition law.