Public Regulation

Not since the 1960s have U.S. politicians, Republican or Democrat, campaigned on platforms defending big government, much less the use of regulation to help solve social ills. And since the late 1970s, "deregulation" has become perhaps the most ubiquitous political catchword of all. This book takes on the critics of government regulation. Providing the first major alternative to conventional arguments grounded in public choice theory, it demonstrates that regulatory government can, and on important occasions does, advance general interests. Unlike previous accounts, Regulation and Public Interests takes agencies' decision-making rules rather than legislative incentives as a central determinant of regulatory outcomes. Drawing from both political science and law, Steven Croley argues that such rules, together with agencies' larger decision-making environments, enhance agency autonomy. Agency personnel inclined to undertake regulatory initiatives that generate large but diffuse benefits (while imposing smaller but more concentrated costs) can use decision-making rules to develop socially beneficial regulations even over the objections of Congress and influential interest groups. This book thus provides a qualified defense of regulatory government. Its illustrative case studies include the development of tobacco rulemaking by the Food and Drug Administration, ozone and particulate matter rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service's "roadless" policy for national forests, and regulatory initiatives by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

As an experiment in reconnecting academia to the broader democracy, this work is designed to invigorate public policy debate by rededicating academic work to the pursuit of solutions to society's great problems.

After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market failure models nor public choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs, and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences.

For years, businesses have complained about the costs of regulatory compliance. On the other hand, society is becoming increasingly aware of the environmental, safety, health, financial, and other risks of business activity. Government oversight seems to be one of the answers to safeguard against these risks. But how can we deregulate and regulate without jeopardizing our public goals or acting as a brake on economic growth? Many instruments are available to assess the effects of laws regulating business, including the regulatory impact assessment (RIA), which contains cost/benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, risk analysis, and cost assessments. This book argues that public goals will be achieved more effectively if compliance costs of the enterprises are as low as possible. Highlighting examples from a wide spectrum of industries and countries, the authors propose a new kind of RIA, the business impact assessment (BIA), designed to improve both business and public policy decision making.

Over the past forty years, numerous theoretical advances have been made. From Ayres’ and Braithwaite’s ground breaking work on ‘responsive regulation’, we have seen models of ‘smart regulation’, ‘regulatory governance’ and ‘regulatory capitalism’ emerge to capture the growing prevalence and importance of regulation in modern liberal Western capitalist societies. Important advances also have been made in the practice of regulation, with regulators evolving from traditional enforcement focussed ‘command and control’ models to being ‘modern regulators’ with a suite of diverse and innovative regulatory tools at their disposal. The book presents and critically examines these theoretical and practical developments from the perspective of governments who design regulations, and the regulators that deploy them. In doing so, the book examines the various forces and interests that influence and shape the regulatory endeavour, and the practical challenges facing governments and regulators when deciding whether and how to regulate. This volume is a study of regulation in context: in the context of the public policy it is designed to deliver; the law that enables, shapes and holds it to account; and the evolving societal and institutional frameworks within which it takes place. Aimed to provide innovative cross-disciplinary conceptual frameworks that regulators, regulatees, those whom regulation is intended to benefit, and academics, might employ to better understand and undertake the regulatory endeavour. This will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public management and administration, and public policy. .

Increasing economic competition combined with the powerful threat of transnational activism are pushing firms to develop new political strategies. Over the past decade a growing number of corporations have adopted policies of industry self-regulation—corporate codes of conduct, social and environmental standards, and auditing and monitoring systems. A Public Role for the Private Sector explores the phenomenon of industry self-regulation through three different cases—environment, labor, and information privacy—where corporate leaders appear to be converging on industry self-regulation as the appropriate response to competing pressures. Political and economic risks, reputational effects, and learning within the business community all influence the adoption of a self-regulatory strategy, but there are wide variations in the strength and character of it across industries and issue areas. Industry self-regulation raises significant questions about the place of the private sector in regulation and governance, and the accountability, legitimacy and power of industry at a time of rapid globalization.

This book provides the tools needed to analyse the present and the future of economic regulation.