Regulation

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Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For example:

Contents

Forms

Regulation in the social, political, psychological, and economic domains can take many forms: legal restrictions promulgated by a government authority, contractual obligations (for example, contracts between insurers and their insureds [1] ), self-regulation in psychology, social regulation (e.g. norms), co-regulation, third-party regulation, certification, accreditation or market regulation. [2]

State-mandated regulation is government intervention in the private market in an attempt to implement policy and produce outcomes which might not otherwise occur, [3] ranging from consumer protection to faster growth or technological advancement.

The regulations may prescribe or proscribe conduct ("command-and-control" regulation), calibrate incentives ("incentive" regulation), or change preferences ("preferences shaping" regulation). Common examples of regulation include limits on environmental pollution, laws against child labor or other employment regulations, minimum wages laws, regulations requiring truthful labelling of the ingredients in food and drugs, and food and drug safety regulations establishing minimum standards of testing and quality for what can be sold, and zoning and development approvals regulation. Much less common are controls on market entry, or price regulation.

One critical question in regulation is whether the regulator or government has sufficient information to make ex-ante regulation more efficient than ex-post liability for harm and whether industry self-regulation might be preferable. [4] [5] [6] [7] The economics of imposing or removing regulations relating to markets is analysed in empirical legal studies, law and economics, political science, environmental science, health economics, and regulatory economics.

Power to regulate should include the power to enforce regulatory decisions. Monitoring is an important tool used by national regulatory authorities in carrying out the regulated activities. [8]

In some countries (in particular the Scandinavian countries) industrial relations are to a very high degree regulated by the labour market parties themselves (self-regulation) in contrast to state regulation of minimum wages etc. [9]

Measurement

Regulation can be assessed for different countries through various quantitative measures. The Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance [10] by World Bank's Global Indicators Group scores 186 countries on transparency around proposed regulations, consultation on their content, the use of regulatory impact assessments [11] and the access to enacted laws on a scale from 0 to 5. The V-Dem Democracy indices include the regulatory quality indicator. [12] The QuantGov project [13] at the Mercatus Center tracks the count of regulations by topic for United States, Canada, and Australia.

History

Regulation of businesses existed in the ancient early Egyptian, Indian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. Standardized weights and measures existed to an extent in the ancient world, and gold may have operated to some degree as an international currency. In China, a national currency system existed and paper currency was invented. Sophisticated law existed in Ancient Rome. In the European Early Middle Ages, law and standardization declined with the Roman Empire, but regulation existed in the form of norms, customs, and privileges; this regulation was aided by the unified Christian identity and a sense of honor regarding contracts. [14] :5

Modern industrial regulation can be traced to the Railway Regulation Act 1844 in the United Kingdom, and succeeding Acts. Beginning in the late 19th and 20th centuries, much of regulation in the United States was administered and enforced by regulatory agencies which produced their own administrative law and procedures under the authority of statutes. Legislators created these agencies to require experts in the industry to focus their attention on the issue. At the federal level, one of the earliest institutions was the Interstate Commerce Commission which had its roots in earlier state-based regulatory commissions and agencies. Later agencies include the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, and various other institutions. These institutions vary from industry to industry and at the federal and state level. Individual agencies do not necessarily have clear life-cycles or patterns of behavior, and they are influenced heavily by their leadership and staff as well as the organic law creating the agency. In the 1930s, lawmakers believed that unregulated business often led to injustice and inefficiency; in the 1960s and 1970s, concern shifted to regulatory capture, which led to extremely detailed laws creating the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Regulatory economics

Regulatory economics is the application of law by government or regulatory agencies for various economics-related purposes, including remedying market failure, protecting the environment and economic management.

Regulatory state

The term regulatory state refers to the expansion in the use of rulemaking, monitoring and enforcement techniques and institutions by the state and to a parallel change in the way its positive or negative functions in society are being carried out. [15] The expansion of the state nowadays is generally via regulation and less via taxing and spending. [16] The notion of the regulatory state is increasingly more attractive for theoreticians of the state with the growth in the use and application of rule making, monitoring and enforcement strategies and with the parallel growth of civil regulation and business regulation.

Regulatory capture

In politics, regulatory capture (also called agency capture) is a form of corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker, or regulator is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological, or political interests of a minor constituency, such as a particular geographic area, industry, profession, or ideological group. [17] [18]

Deregulation

Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy. Economic regulations were promoted during the Gilded Age, in which progressive reforms were claimed as necessary to limit externalities like corporate abuse, unsafe child labor, monopolization, pollution, and to mitigate boom and bust cycles. Around the late 1970s, such reforms were deemed burdensome on economic growth and many politicians espousing neoliberalism started promoting deregulation.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deregulation</span> Remove or reduce state regulations

Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy. Economic regulations were promoted during the Gilded Age, in which progressive reforms were claimed as necessary to limit externalities like corporate abuse, unsafe child labor, monopolization, pollution, and to mitigate boom and bust cycles. Around the late 1970s, such reforms were deemed burdensome on economic growth and many politicians espousing neoliberalism started promoting deregulation.

Race to the bottom is a socio-economic phrase to describe either government deregulation of the business environment or reduction in corporate tax rates, in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions. While this phenomenon can happen between countries as a result of globalization and free trade, it also can occur within individual countries between their sub-jurisdictions. It may occur when competition increases between geographic areas over a particular sector of trade and production. The effect and intent of these actions is to lower labor rates, cost of business, or other factors over which governments can exert control.

In the United States government, independent agencies are agencies that exist outside the federal executive departments and the Executive Office of the President. In a narrower sense, the term refers only to those independent agencies that, while considered part of the executive branch, have regulatory or rulemaking authority and are insulated from presidential control, usually because the president's power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial regulation</span> Rules or restrictions for financial institutions

Financial regulation is a broad set of policies that apply to the financial sector in most jurisdictions, justified by two main features of finance: systemic risk, which implies that the failure of financial firms involves public interest considerations; and information asymmetry, which justifies curbs on freedom of contract in selected areas of financial services, particularly those that involve retail clients and/or Principal–agent problems. An integral part of financial regulation is the supervision of designated financial firms and markets by specialized authorities such as securities commissions and bank supervisors.

Governance is the overall complex system or framework of processes, functions, structures, rules, laws and norms borne out of the relationships, interactions, power dynamics and communication within an organized group of individuals which not only sets the boundaries of acceptable conduct and practices of different actors of the group and controls their decision-making processes through the creation and enforcement of rules and guidelines, but also manages, allocates and mobilizes relevant resources and capacities of different members and sets the overall direction of the group in order to effectively address its specific collective needs, problems and challenges. The concept of governance can be applied to social, political or economic entities such as a state and its government, a governed territory, a society, a community, a social group, a formal or informal organization, a corporation, a non-governmental organization, a non-profit organization, a project team, a market, a network or even the global stage. Governance can also pertain to a specific sector of activities such as land, environment, health, internet, security, etc. The degree of formality in governance depends on the internal rules of a given entity and its external interactions with similar entities. As such, governance may take many forms, driven by many different motivations and with many different results.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banking regulation and supervision</span> Policy framework for credit institutions

Banking regulation and supervision refers to a form of financial regulation which subjects banks to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, enforced by a financial regulatory authority generally referred to as banking supervisor, with semantic variations across jurisdictions. By and large, banking regulation and supervision aims at ensuring that banks are safe and sound and at fostering market transparency between banks and the individuals and corporations with whom they conduct business.

In economics, a government monopoly or public monopoly is a form of coercive monopoly in which a government agency or government corporation is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is a monopoly created, owned, and operated by the government. It is usually distinguished from a government-granted monopoly, where the government grants a monopoly to a private individual or company.

In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Compliance has traditionally been explained by reference to deterrence theory, according to which punishing a behavior will decrease the violations both by the wrongdoer and by others. This view has been supported by economic theory, which has framed punishment in terms of costs and has explained compliance in terms of a cost-benefit equilibrium. However, psychological research on motivation provides an alternative view: granting rewards or imposing fines for a certain behavior is a form of extrinsic motivation that weakens intrinsic motivation and ultimately undermines compliance.

Government failure, in the context of public economics, is an economic inefficiency caused by a government intervention, if the inefficiency would not exist in a true free market. The costs of the government intervention are greater than the benefits provided. It can be viewed in contrast to a market failure, which is an economic inefficiency that results from the free market itself, and can potentially be corrected through government regulation. However, Government failure often arises from an attempt to solve market failure. The idea of government failure is associated with the policy argument that, even if particular markets may not meet the standard conditions of perfect competition required to ensure social optimality, government intervention may make matters worse rather than better.

Regulatory economics is the application of law by government or regulatory agencies for various economics-related purposes, including remedying market failure, protecting the environment and economic management.

In politics, regulatory capture is a form of corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker, or regulator is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological, or political interests of a minor constituency, such as a particular geographic area, industry, profession, or ideological group.

A regulatory agency or independent agency is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous dominion over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulating capacity.

Industry self-regulation is the process whereby members of an industry, trade or sector of the economy monitor their own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a third party entity or governmental regulator monitor and enforce those standards. Self-regulation may ease compliance and ownership of standards, but it can also give rise to conflicts of interest. If any organization, such as a corporation or government bureaucracy, is asked to eliminate unethical behavior within their own group, it may be in their interest in the short run to eliminate the appearance of unethical behavior, rather than the behavior itself, by keeping any ethical breaches hidden, instead of exposing and correcting them. An exception occurs when the ethical breach is already known by the public. In that case, it could be in the group's interest to end the ethical problem to which the public has knowledge, but keep remaining breaches hidden. Another exception would occur in industry sectors with varied membership, such as international brands together with small and medium size companies where the brand owners would have an interest to protect the joint sector reputation by issuing together self-regulation so as to avoid smaller companies with less resources causing damage out of ignorance. Similarly, the reliability of a professional group such as lawyers and journalists could make ethical rules work satisfactorily as a self-regulation if they were a pre-condition for adherence of new members.

Regulatory capitalism suggests that the operation maintenance and development of the international political economy increasingly depends on administrative rules outside the legislatures and the courts. In other words, it tells us that capitalism is a regulatory institution – one that is being constituted, shaped, constrained and expanded as a historically woven patchwork of regulatory institutions, strategies, and functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bootleggers and Baptists</span> Economic concept

Bootleggers and Baptists is a concept put forth by regulatory economist Bruce Yandle, derived from the observation that regulations are supported both by groups that want the ostensible purpose of the regulation, and by groups that profit from undermining that purpose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food safety in China</span>

Food safety in China is a widespread concern for the country's agricultural industry and consumers. China's principal crops are rice, corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton in addition to apples and other fruits and vegetables. China's principal livestock products include pork, beef, dairy, and eggs. The Chinese government oversees agricultural production as well as the manufacture of food packaging, containers, chemical additives, drug production, and business regulation. In recent years, the Chinese government attempted to consolidate food safety regulation with the creation of the State Food and Drug Administration of China in 2003; officials have also been under increasing public and international pressure to solve food safety problems. Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang said, "Food is essential, and safety should be a top priority. Food safety is closely related to people's lives and health and economic development and social harmony," at a State Council meeting in Beijing.

Economic law is a set of legal rules for regulating economic activity. Economics can be defined as "a social science concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services." The regulation of such phenomena, law, can be defined as "customs, practices, and rules of conduct of a community that are recognized as binding by the community", where "enforcement of the body of rules is through a controlling authority." Accordingly, different states have their own legal infrastructure and produce different provisions of goods and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cary Coglianese</span> American legal scholar

Cary Coglianese is an American legal scholar who is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he is also director of the Penn Program on Regulation.

The Energy Commission, abbreviated ST, is a regulatory body for the energy industry in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. The commission was established under the Energy Commission Act 2001. Its key role to ensure that the energy industry is developed in an efficient manner so that Malaysia is ready to meet the new challenges of globalisation and liberalisation, particularly in the energy supply industry.

The Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) is a body set up by the Government of India, Ministry of Finance, on 24 March 2011, to review and rewrite the legal-institutional architecture of the Indian financial sector. This Commission is chaired by a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice B. N. Srikrishna and has an eclectic mix of expert members drawn from the fields of finance, economics, public administration, law etc.

References

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