The Chilean Consumer Protection Agency and its Relationship with Specific-Market Regulators: Mechanisms for Improving Inter-Agency Coordination

Abstract

The majority of Chilean agencies monitoring specific markets have developed a systemic approach that leaves consumer protection in a secondary place. Simultaneously, the authority of the Consumer Protection Agency (National Consumer Service, ‘Sernac’, by the Spanish acronym) to monitor those specific markets has been growing during the last decade. The current bill reforming the Consumer Protection Law continues this trend of splitting the regulatory function, strengthening the Sernac’s powers to oversee matters related with the conduct-of-business of regulated firms, while maintaining a bureaucratic framework whose main target is the prudential regulation. The paper develops a conceptual framework directed to understand and solve the coordination problem arising from this kind of institutional design.