Regulation is "controlling human or societal behavior by rules or restrictions."^[1] Regulation can take many forms: legal Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. Laws can shape or reflect politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people restrictions promulgated by a government A government is the organization, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects authority, self-regulation Self-policing, a form of Self-regulation, is the process whereby an organization is asked, or volunteers, to monitor its own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a governmental entity monitor and enforce those standards by an industry such as through a trade association An industry trade group, also known as a trade association, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. An industry trade association participates in public relations activities such as advertising, education, political donations, lobbying and publishing, but its main focus is collaboration between, social regulation Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control mechanisms used to prevent the establishment of (e.g. norms Social norms are the behavioral expectations and cues within a society or group. This sociological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit. Failure to follow the rules can result in severe punishments, including), co-regulation and market regulation. One can consider regulation as actions of conduct imposing sanctions Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group. Inflicted unpleasantness without authority is not punishment, but is characterized as something else. Punishment may be administered following a formal decision process, or informally (such as a fine The most usual use of the term, fine, relates to a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct). This action of administrative law Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law. As a body of law, administrative law deals with the decision-making, or implementing regulatory law, may be contrasted with statutory This word is used in contradistinction to the common law. Statutes acquire their force from the time of their passage unless otherwise provided. Statutes are of several kinds; namely, Public or private. Declaratory or remedial. Temporary or perpetual. 1. A temporary statute is one which is limited in its duration at the time of its enactment. It or case law Case law is the reported decisions of selected appellate and other courts which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis. These interpretations are distinguished from statutory law which are the statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies; regulatory law which are.

Regulation mandated by a state A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. In Max Weber's influential definition, it is that organization that has a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory& attempts to produce outcomes which might not otherwise occur, produce or prevent outcomes in different places to what might otherwise occur, or produce or prevent outcomes in different timescales than would otherwise occur. In this way, regulations can be seen as implementation artifacts of policy A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol. Whereas a policy will contain the 'what' and the 'why', procedures or protocols contain the 'what', the 'how', the ' statements. Common examples of regulation include controls on market entries, prices In all modern economies, the overwhelming majority of prices are quoted in units of some form of currency. Although in theory, prices could be quoted as quantities of other goods or services this sort of barter exchange is rarely seen, wages A wage is a compensation, usually financial, received by workers in exchange for their labor, Development approvals Development approvals is a general reference to the broad suite of regulatory approvals that must be obtained prior to commencing a development. With few exceptions, all development activities are subject to Regulation through-out the world's soveriegn juridictions. Examples of the kind of development that is subject to regulatory approval, pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat, or light. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, effects, employment Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how for certain people in certain industries Industry refers to the production of an economic good within an economy. There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction, and manufacturing; the tertiary sector, which deals with services (such as law, standards of production for certain goods In macroeconomics and accounting, a good is contrasted with a service. In this sense, a good is defined as a physical product, capable of being delivered to a purchaser and involves the transfer of ownership from seller to customer, say an apple, as opposed to an (intangible) service, say a haircut. A more general term that preserves the, the military forces and services The tertiary sector of the economy is one of the three economic sectors, the others being the secondary sector (approximately manufacturing) and the primary sector (extraction such as mining, agriculture and fishing). The general definition of the tertiary sector is producing a service instead of just an end product, in the case of the secondary. The economics Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek οἰκονομία from οἶκος (oikos, "house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)". Current economic of imposing or removing regulations relating to markets A market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things. Competition is essential in markets, and separates market from trade is analysed in regulatory economics Regulatory economics is the economics of regulation, in the sense of the application of law by government that is used for various purposes, such as centrally-planning an economy, remedying market failure, enriching well-connected firms, or benefiting politicians . It is not considered to include voluntary regulation that may be accomplished in.

Types of regulation

Regulations, like any other form of coercive Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical pain/ action, have costs for some and benefits for others. Efficient regulations are defined as those where the total benefits to some people exceed the total costs to others.

Regulations are justified using a variety of reasons and therefore can be classified in several broad categories:

• Market failures In economics, a market failure occurs when there is an inefficient allocation of goods and services in a market. That is, there exists another outcome where market participants' overall gains from the new outcome outweigh their losses . Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where individuals' pursuit of pure self-interest leads to results - regulation due to inefficiency. Intervention due to a classical economics Classical economics is widely regarded as the first modern school of economic thought. Its major developers include Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill argument to market failure.
  • Risk of monopoly In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / μονος + polein / πωλειν (to sell)) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. (This is in contrast to a monopsony which relates to a
  • Collective action, or public good In economics, a public good is a good that is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Non-rivalry means that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and non-excludability that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good. In the real world, there may be no such thing as an
  • Inadequate information Information, in its most restricted technical sense, is an ordered sequence of symbols. As a concept, however, information has many meanings. Moreover, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation
  • Unseen externalizations In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices, incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit. A benefit in this case is called a positive externality or external benefit, while a cost is called a negative externality or external cost
• Collective desires - regulation about collective desires or considered judgments on the part of a significant segments of society A society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of
• Diverse experiences - regulation with a view of eliminating Strict censorship existed in the Eastern Bloc. Throughout the bloc, the various ministries of culture held a tight rein on their writers. Cultural products there reflected the propaganda needs of the state. Party-approved censors exercised strict control in the early years. In the Stalinist period, even the weather forecasts were changed if they or enhancing Sensitivity Training is a form of training that claims to make people more aware of their own prejudices, and more sensitive to others. According to its critics, it involves the use of psychological techniques with groups that its critics[who?] claim are often identical to brainwashing tactics. Critics believe these techniques are unethical opportunities for the formation of diverse preferences and beliefs
• Social subordination - regulation aimed to increase CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR or reduce Crime of apartheid · CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR social subordination of various social groups
• Endogenous Endogenous substances are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell . Endogenous retroviruses are caused by ancient infections of germ cells in humans, mammals and other vertebrates. Their proviruses remain in the genome and are passed on to the next generation preferences - regulation's purpose is to affect the development of certain preferences on an aggregate level
• Irreversibility In science, a process that is not reversible is called irreversible. This concept arises most frequently in thermodynamics, as applied to processes. Irreversibility is also used in economics to refer to investment or expenditures that involve large sunk costs - regulation that deals with the problem of irreversibility – the problem in which a certain type of conduct from current generations results in outcomes from which future generations may not recover from at all.
• Interest group Advocacy groups use various forms of advocacy to influence public opinion and/or policy; they have played and continue to play an important part in the development of political and social systems. Groups vary considerably in size, influence and motive; some have wide ranging long term social purposes, others are focused and are a response to an transfers - regulation that results from efforts by self-interest groups to redistribute wealth in their favor, which may disguise itself as one or more of the justifications above.

The study of formal (legal and/or official) and informal (extera-legal and/or unofficial) regulation constitutes one of the central concerns of the Sociology of law The sociology of law is a sub-discipline of sociology and an interdisciplinary approach within the field of legal studies. As a field of research, it is intellectually dependent on mainstream sociology, i.e. it borrows theories and methods from sociology to study law, legal institutions and legal behaviour. It consists of various sociological. Legal sociologists have in particular been interested in exploring the limits of formal and legal regulation in changing patterns of social behaviour.

History

Regulation of businesses existed in the ancient Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history in the Old World to the Early Middle Ages in Europe 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 Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world. In the European Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages . The period saw a continuation of trends begun during the decline of the Roman Empire, including population decline, especially in, law, standardization, and the power of the state languished after the decline of Rome, 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 in regard to contracts In law, a contract is a legally binding agreement between two or more parties which, if it contains the elements of a valid legal agreement, is enforceable by law or by binding arbitration. A legally enforceable contract is an exchange of promises with specific legal remedies for breach. These can include compensatory remedy, whereby the.^[2]:5

Beginning in the late 19th and 20th century, much of regulation in the United States was administered and enforced by regulatory agencies A regulatory agency is a public authority or government agency responsible for exercising autonomous authority over some area of human activity in a regulatory or supervisory capacity. An independent regulatory agency is a regulatory agency that is independent from other branches or arms of the government which produced their own administrative law Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law. As a body of law, administrative law deals with the decision-making and procedures under the authority of statutes. Legislators created these agencies to allow experts in the industry to focus their attention on the issue. At the federal level, one the earliest institutions was the Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland. The agency was abolished in 1995, and the agency's remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board which had its roots in earlier state-based regulatory commissions and agencies. Later agencies include the Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act. Its principal mission is the promotion of "consumer protection" and the elimination and prevention of what regulators perceive to be harmfully "anti-competitive" business practices,, Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a federal agency which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States. In addition to the 1934 Act that created it, the SEC enforces, Civil Aeronautics Board Governments have played an important part in shaping air transportation. This role began as early as 1783, when the king of France summoned the Montgolfier brothers to demonstrate their balloon. In 1892, the French War Ministry backed an attempt to build a heavier-than-air flying machine. Six years later, a military board in the United States, and various other institutions. These institutions vary from industry to industry and at the federal and state level. Individual agencies do not necessarily have a clear life-cycle and patterns of behavior, and 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 Environmental Protection Administration and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Agencies and regulatory laws have slowed the growth of business and granted protection to businesses, although this is not always inappropriate given the potentially destabalizing effects of rapid change.^[3]:300-309

Deregulation, regulatory reform and liberalization

The second half of the 20th century saw a wave of attempts to modify some existing regulatory structures and systematize the creation and review of new ones. A part of this was the deregulation movement.

A parallel development with 'deregulation' has been organized, ongoing programs to review regulatory initiatives with a view to minimizing, simplifying, and making more cost effective regulations. Such efforts, given impetus by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 in the United States, are embodied in the United States Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and the United Kingdom's Better Regulation Commission. Cost-benefit analysis is frequently used in such reviews. In addition, there have been regulatory innovations, usually suggested by economists, such as emissions trading. Academic research on wedding economic theory with regulatory activity continues. Ironically, the deregulation movement is sometimes driven through the creation of deregulatory bodies that are themselves based in regulation.

From other point of view, liberalization does not always imply deregulation, but more players in the Market (desoligolipolization).

See also

• Sociology of law
• Bootleggers and Baptists
• Code of Federal Regulations
• Delegated legislation
• Development approvals
• Federal Register
• Public administration
• Public choice theory
• Regulator
• Rulemaking
• Regulatory capture
• Cybernetics

References

1. ^ Bert-Jaap Koops et al. Starting Points for ICT Regulations, Deconstructing Prevalent Policy One-liners, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 2006, p. 81
2. ^ John Braithwaite, Péter Drahos. (2000). Global Business Regulation. Cambridge University Press.
3. ^ MMcCraw T. (1984). Prophets of Regulation. The Belknap Press.

External links

• The Regulatory Law Review
• New Perspectives on Regulation (2009) and Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation (2009) Two recent academic volumes that discuss various theories of regulation, available online.
• OECD work with G8 for the 2009 L'Aquila Summit
• OECD - Why a Global Standard for a stronger, cleaner, fairer economy?
• OECD blog: The Global Standard
• The New Regulatory Era -- An Introduction, Arizona Law Review (2009): By Barak Orbach
• RegState.net: Orbach on Regulation
• A Comparative Bibliography: Regulatory Competition on Corporate Law
• See Regulation & Governance, A new Blackwell Journal dedicated for the study of Regulation
• Reports of UK practice from the Better Regulation Commission
• A glimpse into some United Kingdom deregulatory procedures
• An Introduction to Regulation
• Regulation updates service on the UK government Business Link website
• The ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance maintains a website that is dedicated to the subject
• The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has a Regulatory Studies Program
• ReguStand dedicated for helping SMEs manage regulation
• Regulatory law in the UK
• ICTs, Markets and Regulation The role of markets and reasons for their failure, and in the information and communications technologies arena, the affects of innovation and convergence on market structure, and the relative importance of market failure and social responsibility as reasons for regulating (2005)
• Center for Financial Market Regulation
• Body of Knowledge on Infrastructure Regulation
• Penn Program on Regulation

Show All>>

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Water System: Blogs
• Rate Case: Blogs
• Municipal: Answers
• Public Utility District: Blogs
• American Public Power Association: Encyclopedia
• Essent: Answers
• Concentration Ratio: Blogs
• Clayton Antitrust Act: Blogs
• Search Terms

Most Popular Pages:

• Concentration Ratio: Blogs
• Water System: Blogs
• Investment: News
• Clayton Antitrust Act: Blogs
• Essent: Answers
• Rate Case: Blogs
• Rural: Blogs
• Domestic Policy of the Reagan Administration: Blogs
• Public Utility District: Blogs
• History of Economic Thought: Blogs

Related 'Regulation' Searches: