The paper identifies three issues related to the economics of public interest provisions. Firstly, the paper considers the problem of using public interest provisions as motivation for arbitrary (rather than systematic) interventions in competition cases. The paper relates the problem to broader economic policy uncertainty. Secondly, the paper considers the relationship between public interest objectives and the welfare standard in South African competition cases. Thirdly, the paper considers the analytical requirements for investigating public interest issues, including the need for dynamic rather than static analysis as well as the problem of ‘merger-specificity’, especially in relation to job losses.