Regulation#Social

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 insuredsMarcos Antonio Mendoza, "Reinsurance as Governance: Governmental Risk Management Pools as a Case Study in the Governance Role Played by Reinsurance Institutions", 21 Conn. Ins. L.J. 53, (2014) https://ssrn.com/abstract=2573253), self-regulation in psychology, social regulation (e.g. norms), co-regulation, third-party regulation, certification, accreditation or market regulation.Levi-Faur, David, Regulation and Regulatory Governance, Jerusalem Papers in Regulation and Governance, No. 1, 2010

State-mandated regulation is government intervention in the private market in an attempt to implement policy and produce outcomes which might not otherwise occur,Orbach, Barak, [https://ssrn.com/abstract=2143385 What Is Regulation? 30 Yale Journal on Regulation Online] 1 (2012) 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.{{Cite journal|last=Sim|first=Michael|date=2018|title=Limited Liability and the Known Unknown|url=https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3121519|journal=Duke Law Journal|volume=68|pages=275–332|doi=10.2139/ssrn.3121519|s2cid=44186028|issn=1556-5068|via=SSRN}}{{Cite journal|last=Schwarcz|first=Steven L.|date=2011|title=Keynote & Chapman Dialogue Address: Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Approaches to Financial Regulation|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1748007|journal=SSRN Electronic Journal|doi=10.2139/ssrn.1748007|s2cid=154354509|issn=1556-5068}}{{Citation|last=Hosoe|first=Moriki|title=Ex-ante Regulation, Ex-post Regulation, and Collusion|date=2020|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3300-6_4|work=Applied Economic Analysis of Information and Risk|pages=49–66|place=Singapore|publisher=Springer Singapore|doi=10.1007/978-981-15-3300-6_4|isbn=978-981-15-3299-3|s2cid=216306756|access-date=2020-11-03}}{{Cite web|last=Shavell|first=Steven|date=October 1983|title=Liability for Harm Versus Regulation of Safety|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w1218|location=Cambridge, MA|doi=10.3386/w1218}} 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.Eraldo Banovac. Monitoringgrundlagen der kroatischen Regulierungsbehörde für Energie. EW − das Magazin für die Energie Wirtschaft, Vol. 103, No. 1–2, 2004, pp. 14–16.

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.Anders Kjellberg (2017) [http://portal.research.lu.se/ws/files/23904978/Kjellberg_FSNumhauserHenning_Self_Regulation_State_Regulation.pdf "Self-regulation versus State Regulation in Swedish Industrial Relations"] In Mia Rönnmar and Jenny Julén Votinius (eds.) Festskrift till Ann Numhauser-Henning. Lund: Juristförlaget i Lund 2017, pp. 357-383

Regulation can be assessed for different countries through various quantitative measures. The Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance{{Cite web |title=Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance |url=https://rulemaking.worldbank.org/en/rulemaking |website=World Bank Group}} 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{{cite web |publisher=Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |date=October 2008 |title=Introductory Handbook for Undertaking Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) |url=https://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/44789472.pdf |postscript=, |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230804020427/https://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/44789472.pdf |archive-date= Aug 4, 2023 }} retrieved 4/11/23. and the access to enacted laws on a scale from 0 to 5. The V-Dem Democracy indices include the regulatory quality indicator.[http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3066654 Sigman, Rachel, and Staffan I. Lindberg. "Neopatrimonialism and democracy: An empirical investigation of Africa's political regimes". V-Dem Working Paper 56 (2017).] The QuantGov project{{cite web|url=https://quantgov.org|title=QuantGov|website=quantgov.org|access-date=June 4, 2023}} at the Mercatus Center tracks the count of regulations by topic for United States, Canada, and Australia. The length of Code of Federal Regulations of the United States increased over time.{{cite web | title= Code of Federal Regulations, Total Pages 1938 - 1949, and total volumes and pages 1950 - 2021, Federal Register | url=https://uploads.federalregister.gov/uploads/2022/10/28150527/FR-Stats-2021-Cfr-Volumes.pdf}}

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.John Braithwaite, Péter Drahos. (2000). Global Business Regulation. Cambridge University Press.{{rp|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.

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• {{annotated link|Consumer protection}}
• {{annotated link|Rulemaking}}
• {{annotated link|Environmental law}}
• {{annotated link|Occupational safety and health}}
• {{annotated link|Public administration}}
• {{annotated link|Regulatory science}}
• {{annotated link|Regulation of science}}
• {{annotated link|Tragedy of the commons}}
• {{annotated link|Public choice}}
• {{annotated link|Precautionary principle}}

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• [http://www.cerre.eu Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE)]
• [http://www.tobinproject.org/books-papers/new-perspectives-regulation New Perspectives on Regulation (2009)] and [http://tobinproject.org/books-papers/government-markets Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation (2009)]
• [http://policyresearch.gc.ca/page.asp?pagenm=pub_wp020 US/Canadian Regulatory Cooperation:] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430214811/http://policyresearch.gc.ca/page.asp?pagenm=pub_wp020 |date=2011-04-30 }} Schmitz on Lessons from the European Union, Canadian Privy Council Office Commissioned Study
• [https://ssrn.com/abstract=1103644 A Comparative Bibliography: Regulatory Competition on Corporate Law]

• Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Information Economy
• [https://ssrn.com/abstract=970646 Lawrence A. Cunningham, A Prescription to Retire the Rhetoric of 'Principles-Based Systems' in Corporate Law, Securities Regulation and Accounting (2007)]

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Category:Economics of regulation

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Category:Public policy