Regulation is often thought of as an activity that restricts behaviour and prevents the occurrence of certain undesirable activities, but the influence of regulation can also be enabling or facilitative, as when a market could potentially be chaotic if uncontrolled. This Handbook provides a clear and authoritative discussion of the major trends and issues in regulation over the last thirty years, together with an outline of prospective developments. It brings together contributions from leading scholars from a range of disciplines and countries. Each chapter offers a broad overview of key current issues and provides an analysis of different perspectives on those issues. Experiences in different jurisdictions and insights from various disciplines are drawn upon, and particular attention is paid to the challenges that are encountered when specific approaches are applied in practice. Contributors develop their own distinctive arguments relating to the central issues in regulation and apply scholarly rigour and clear writing to matters of high policy-relevance. The essays are original, accessible, and agenda-setting, and the Handbook will be essential reading both to students and researchers and to with regulatory and regulated professionals.
PART I: GENERAL ISSUES ; 1. Regulation: The Field and the Developing Agenda ; 2. Economic Approaches to Regulation ; 3. Regulatory Rationales Beyond the Economic: In Search of the Public Interest ; 4. The Regulatory State ; PART II : PROCESSES AND STRATEGIES ; 5. Strategic Use of Regulation ; 6. Standard-Setting in Regulatory Regimes ; 7. Enforcement and Compliance Strategies ; 8. Meta-Regulation and Self-Regulation ; 9. Self-Regulatory Authority, Markets, and the Ideology of Professionalism ; PART III: CONTESTED ISSUES ; 10. Alternatives to Regulation? Market Mechanisms and the Environment ; 11. The Evaluation of Regulatory Agencies ; 12. Better Regulation: the Search and the Struggle ; 13. Regulatory Impact Assessment ; 14. The Role of Risk in Regulatory Processes ; 15. Accountability in the Regulatory State ; 16. On the Theory and Evidence on Regulation of Network Industries in Developing Countries ; 17. Global Regulation ; PART IV: REGULATORY DOMAINS ; 18. Financial Services and Markets ; 19. Pricing in Network Industries ; 20. Regulation and Competition Law in Telecommunications and Other Network Industries ; 21. Regulation of Cyberspace ; 22. The Regulation of the Pharmaceutical Industry ; 23. Regulation and Sustainable Energy Systems ; 24. Regulation Inside Government: Retro-Theory Vindicated or Outdated? ; PART V: CONCLUSION ; 25. Conclusion: The Future of Regulation
