How can competition be a good thing

Dad jumps into swimming lessons. All heart: Exercise after heart surgery. Scrambled Legs running challenge. Round the Bays: Race Day tips. How To Train Balance — Video.

Rio Bound: Tracey Lambrechs. Home Athlete Development. Share on Facebook. Think back to great competitions you had as a kid — where did they take place? Here are 5 reasons why competition is a good thing for your child: Competition embodies play.

Play is perhaps the greatest setting for learning social skills and integration. Competition is exciting. Competition fosters cooperation. Competition develops emotional control. Competition inspires creativity. Here are 5 negative effects to watch out for: Competition harbours hostility and aggression.

Competition leads to dropout. Competition triggers injury. Competition chokes performance. Now it is looking closer to home. Chinese Business are being actively encouraged to form partnerships with Western companies to help them improve energy efficiency and achieve growth, detailed in the plan. And it is the engine that will pull the world. Together they plan to build and operate a world-scale acrylonitrile plant in Tianjin, which will be designed using the latest INEOS process and catalyst technology.

They want high Western standards. Today there is an unprecedented level of care and diligence for the environment and its people. In September, the authorities in Beijing unveiled their own five-point plan to tackle pollution in the capital. Although it has vast domestic coal and gas resources, it has problems accessing it, so it increasingly relies on foreign imports.

While other nations may view clean energy as a costly drag on economic growth, China does not. INEOS has never been one to run from a challenge. This one is no different. It wants to get kids running again and has launched a bold, new initiative that is doing just that. Chairman Jim Ratcliffe has turned his own passion for running into an initiative, which could, in turn, help to tackle one of the most serious global public health challenges facing the 21st century — child obesity.

And that can only lead to them enjoying a more active and healthier lifestyle. And by the time you read this more than 10, children will have taken part. By , it is hoped more than 30, children will have taken part in one of the 70 planned Go Run For Fun events, rising to 50, — and events — by And parents will inspire other parents. That sedentary lifestyle — coupled with eating too many fatty, sugary foods — has led to a huge increase in the number of children in the UK with obesity.

But the UK is not alone. The World Health Organization said child obesity was now so widespread that it regarded it as one of the most serious global public health challenges facing the 21st century.

But so often children are told to slow down and sit still. This campaign is about encouraging children to run again. Along side this; a record 6, children entered the 4km Junior Great North Run. We are not trying to put a man on the Moon. We are just trying to get as many kids running for fun as possible.

And they will be the future Great North and London Marathon runners and you can bet that at least one of those 50, kids will be at the Olympics. This is just about getting kids running and having fun. Running is one of the best ways to improve the mind, body and soul. He said the medical profession was finally realising that running was not just about burning calories.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that running damages your joints. But he believed the key to its long-term success would be to inspire parents. For the long-term benefits of running are now well researched and well documented. Running gives your heart and lungs a workout, it improves circulation and reduces the risk of a heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke. It also relieves stress, improves endurance, boosts your immune system, increases energy and helps you to maintain a healthy body weight.

David Deister, project manager, German Athletics Federation Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but co-operation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

Roosevelt, former President of the United States There are enough opportunities in life for children to have a disappointment and to learn to handle that. In , a year-old Scout was listening to a talk about Everest. Mount Everest is not for the faint-hearted. It is a hostile, unforgiving place. A place where, five miles up, death lives in the faces of frozen corpses that litter the route to the top. But I just decided I wanted to climb Everest one day and the rest of what happened was a result of working towards that goal.

He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. With the money in his pocket — and an INEOS flag to plant at the summit — Rhys could now concentrate on the journey that lay ahead. There were some very close calls. I was nearly taken out twice by an avalanche.

People do die on Everest, but I remember being very objective about it, and only scoring things as hit or miss. No matter how close he was to the summit. Everest, sadly, seems to encourage intelligent people to take stupid risks. The relief was immense. Lessons learned from climbing have helped him to shape the business. But I treat them both in a similar way, and focus on the facts, the likelihoods, the outcomes and then make a judgement.

INEOS is obsessive when it comes to safety. But when you work in a high-risk environment, you cannot afford to be complacent. In August an Indian helicopter ferrying 25 offshore rig workers nose-dived into the sea, its blades still spinning. The crew, still strapped in their seats, died as the helicopter sank in seconds.

Only two passengers survived. They escaped by swimming out of the rear clamshell doors, and were rescued. Both of them were also the only two to have undergone helicopter underwater escape training HUET. They have been teaching offshore workers how to escape in the event of a helicopter ditching in the sea for the past seven years.

A helicopter can fall out of the sky like a stone, spin horribly out of control or actually land quite gently. Whatever happens, the key to survival is to get out as quickly as possible. It also gives them the confidence to face the unimaginable and stay calm.

At Norward, instructors use a mock helicopter in a pool to demonstrate what will happen when a helicopter ditches in the sea and then, in all likelihood due to the fact that helicopters are top heavy, flips over. A wave machine, wind generator and lighting are all used to create different scenarios.

Helicopter crashes are thankfully rare but since all offshore personnel have to undergo HUET by law. By then it had been transformed from a simple, in-house emergency response centre, affiliated to Norsk, into a successful business — with a five million Euro turnover — offering training to outside companies and members of the public. The world needs chemistry now more than ever. Far from being a drain on society, the chemical industry is best placed to understand what needs to be done to create a sustainable world and, more importantly, it knows how to achieve it.

So far 11 countries have signed up to SusChem Europe. Switzerland is next. And INEOS — a company that thrives on finding innovative solutions to challenging problems — is in the driving seat.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster — triggered by an earthquake and a massive tsunami in Japan in March — sent shockwaves around the world. Germany shut down eight of its reactors, Italy voted overwhelmingly to keep their country nuclear free and Spain banned the construction of new reactors. There was a similar reaction in Switzerland, which actually was the first country in Europe to announce plans to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the crisis in Japan. In its place, the Federal Council and Parliament laid the foundations for a new strategy for Swiss energy to Initially Switzerland will have to rely on imported energy and electricity, which will increase its carbon footprint and presents a huge political and economic challenge.

But that bold decision has also created a real opportunity — and incentive — for Switzerland to use energy more responsibly and upgrade the use of carbon — as a feedstock rather than a fuel. Its aims will be to find ways of cutting carbon emissions, reducing energy consumption, managing resources effectively, handling waste and developing clean technologies.

One industry may have a question; another the answer. We will act as the glue in between. As in sport, competition is an incentive for companies to excel, thereby fostering innovation, diversity of supply and attractive prices for consumers and businesses alike. Competition thus stimulates growth and generates substantial benefits for the community!

In everyday life, the French understands this, making use of competition wherever they can by comparing available products, prices and services and switching operators to benefit from more attractive offers. Purchasing power is a major concern in France.

Competition policy is a powerful and effective means of protecting it; fighting anticompetitive practices, controlling take-overs and mergers, and updating laws and regulations all work towards the same objective: to drive genuine competition, which translates in particular into more attractive prices for consumers. Companies benefit too Competition is not just a matter of price. In practice it means greater product diversity and it promotes the emergence of new services.

The pressure exerted by their competitors encourages companies to promote their products and to stand out by focusing on originality or quality of service or by targeting new customer segments. Because they can access a wider range of products and services, consumers — and also businesses, as consumers of raw materials — can find the product that best meets their needs.

For established companies, economic competition is an incentive to keep innovating and improve their productivity so they remain efficient and effective and can stay in the race to continue attracting consumers. When there is a wide range of products and services that meet their needs, consumers do not always choose solely on price. The quality of the products and services on offer can also be decisive factors.

A fair approach in the accommodation between the seemingly disparate goals of regulation and competition should be to assume that competition, and thus antitrust law, does operate unless clearly displaced. In condemning private and public anti-competitive restraints, competition officials and courts invariably prescribe competition as the cure.

But that is a function of market conditions, not competition itself. Competition itself cannot cause market failures. Economist Irving Fisher over a century ago examined two assumptions of any laissez-faire doctrine: first, each individual is the best judge of what subserves his own interest, and the motive of self-interest leads him to secure the maximum of well-being for himself; and, secondly, since society is merely the sum of individuals, the effort of each to secure the maximum of well-being for himself has as its necessary effect to secure thereby also the maximum of well-being for society as a whole.

Competition policy typically assumes that market participants can best judge what subserves their interests. Suboptimal competition can arise when firms compete in fostering and exploiting demand-driven biases or imperfect willpower. To illustrate, suppose many consumers share certain biases and limited willpower. Competition benefits society when firms compete to help consumers obtain or find solutions for their bounded rationality and willpower.

Providing this information is another facet of competition—trust us, we will not exploit you. The credit card industry provides one example. Some consumers do not understand the complex, opaque ways late fees and interest rates are calculated, and are overoptimistic on their ability and willpower to timely pay off the credit card purchases.

For other credit card competitors, exploiting consumer biases makes more sense than incurring the costs to debias. Alternatively, the debiased consumers do not remain with the helpful credit card company. Instead they switch to the remaining exploiting credit card firms, where they, along with the other sophisticated customers, benefit from the exploitation such as getting airline miles for their purchases, while not incurring any late fees.

This problem, of course, can arise under oligopolies or monopolies. But here entry and greater competition, as one recent survey found, can worsen, rather than improve, the situation: The most striking result of the literature so far is that increasing competition through fostering entry of more firms may not on its own always improve outcomes for consumers.

Indeed competition may not help when there are at least some consumers who do not search properly or have difficulties judging quality and prices … In the presence of such consumers it is no longer clear that firms necessarily have an incentive to compete by offering better deals.

Rather, they can focus on exploiting biased consumers who are very likely to purchase from them regardless of price and quality. These effects can be made worse through firms' deliberate attempts to make price comparisons and search harder through complex pricing, shrouding, etc and obscure product quality.

The incentives to engage in such activities become more intense when there are more competitors. Second, after identifying these consumers, firms must be able to exploit them. But firms, like consumers, are also susceptible to biases and heuristics. In competitive settings—such as auctions and bidding wars—overconfidence and passion may trump reason, leading participants to overpay for the purchased assets. If repeated biased decision-making is not punished, the problem is too little, rather than too much, competition.

Given the cost of losing, it is also illogical to enter a bidding war. But if everyone believes this, no one bids—also illogical. If only one person bids, that person gets a bargain. Once multiple bidders emerge, the second highest bidder fears having to pay and escalates the commitment. Bazerman and Moore analogize their experiment to merger contests. Competitors A and B, in their example, fear being competitively disadvantaged if the other acquires cheaply Company C, a key supplier or buyer.

Firms A and B may rationally decide to enter the bidding contest. Both are better off if the other cannot acquire Company C, nonetheless neither can afford the other to acquire the firm. Here clear antitrust standards can benefit the competitors. If they both know they cannot acquire Company C under the antitrust laws, neither will bid. Antitrust, while not always preventing the competitive escalation paradigm, can prevent overbidding in highly concentrated industries where market forces cannot punish firms that overbid.

Suppose the first assumption Fisher identifies is satisfied—people aptly judge what serves their interest, which leads them to maximize their well-being. One avoids the problem of behavioral exploitation and perhaps the competitive escalation paradigm. Competition benefits society when individual and group interests and incentives are aligned or at least do not conflict.

Difficulties arise when individual interests and group interests diverge. One area of suboptimal competition is where advantages and disadvantages are relative. Hockey players are another example. Hockey players prefer wearing helmets. But to secure a relative competitive advantage, one player chooses to play without a helmet.

The other players follow. None now have a competitive advantage from playing helmetless. Collectively the hockey players are worse off. A recent example is Wall Street traders who inject testosterone to obtain a competitive advantage. They and society are collectively worse off. Below are five additional scenarios where competition for a relative advantage can leave the competitors collectively and society worse off.

Today corporations and trade groups spend billions of dollars lobbying the federal and state governments. Microsoft now spends millions of dollars annually on lobbying. The Supreme Court quickened the race to the bottom when it substantially weakened the limitations on corporate political spending, and thereby vastly increased the importance of pleasing large donors to win elections.

These corporations fear that officeholders will shake them down for supportive ads, that they will have to spend increasing sums on elections in an ever-escalating arms race with their competitors, and that public trust in business will be eroded. A system that effectively forces corporations to use their shareholders' money both to maintain access to, and to avoid retribution from, elected officials may ultimately prove more harmful than beneficial to many corporations.

It can impose a kind of implicit tax. When auditor Ernst and Young recently surveyed nearly chief financial officers, its findings were disturbing: When presented with a list of possibly questionable actions that may help the business survive, 47 per cent of CFOs felt one or more could be justified in an economic downturn.

Worryingly, 15 per cent of CFOs surveyed would be willing to make cash payments to win or retain business and 4 per cent view misstating a company's financial performance as justifiable to help a business survive.

While 46 per cent of total respondents agree that company management is likely to cut corners to meet targets, CFOs have an even more pessimistic view 52 per cent. Competition, economist Andrei Shleifer discusses, can pressure companies to engage in unethical or criminal behavior, if doing so yields the firm a relative competitive advantage.

Other firms, given the cost disadvantage, face competitive pressure to follow; such competition collectively leaves the firms and society worse off. But under a shared value worldview, these concepts are reinforcing. The conflict between collective and individual interests arose in the financial crisis. Banks, the OECD described, are prone to take substantial risks: First, the opacity and the long maturity of banks' assets make it easier to cover any misallocation of resources, at least in the short run.

Second, the wide dispersion of bank debt among small, uninformed and often fully insured investors prevents any effective discipline on banks from the side of depositors. Thus, because banks can behave less prudently without being easily detected or being forced to pay additional funding costs, they have stronger incentives to take risk than firms in other industries.

Examples of fraud and excessive risk are numerous in the history of financial systems as the current crisis has also shown. Even for rational-choice theorists like Richard Posner, the government must be a countervailing force to such self-interested rational private behavior by better regulating financial institutions. One may ask if competition is the problem, then is monopoly the cure. The remedy is neither monopoly nor overregulation which besides impeding competition, stifles innovation and renders the financial system inefficient or unprofitable.

The FTC in Ethyl described this divergence: An individual customer may rationally wish to have advance notice of price increases, uniform delivered pricing, or most favored nation clauses available in connection with the purchase of antiknock compounds. However, individual purchasers are often unable to perceive or to measure the overall effect of all sellers pursuing the same practices with many buyers, and do not understand or appreciate the benefit of prohibiting the practices to improve the competitive environment ….

In short, marketing practices that are preferred by both sellers and buyers may still have an anticompetitive effect. What the appellate court failed to grasp is that MFNs—while individually rational—can be collectively irrational. If the buyers fiercely compete, MFNs seemingly provide a relative cost advantage.

Why should they uniquely incur the cost, when the benefits accrue to their rivals? Status competition epitomizes competition for relative position among consumers with interdependent preferences. Either people adapt to their fancier lifestyle, and envy those on the higher rung.