Understanding Regulation

The way in which regulation works is a key concern of industries, consumers, citizens, and governments alike. Understanding Regulation takes the reader through the central issues of regulation and discusses these from a number of disciplinary perspectives. This book is written by a lawyer and an economist, but looks also towards business, political science, sociology, social administration, anthropology, and other disciplines. The fundamental strategies, institutions, and explanations of regulation are reviewed and the means of identifying 'good' regulation are outlined. Individual chapters look at such topics as self-regulation, the regulation of risks, the cost-benefit testing of regulation, the importance of enforcement, and the challenge of regulating within Europe. The book's second part considers a series of issues of particular concern in modern utilities regulation, including the use of RPI-X price caps, the control of service quality, franchising techniques and ways of measuring regulatory performance. Questions of accountability and procedure are then examined and recent public debates on regulatory reform are reviewed. A central argument of Understanding Regulation is that regulation inevitably gives rise to political contention but that persons of different political persuasion can nevertheless converse sensibly on the search for better regulation.

ISBN 0198774389   DEWEY edition DC21 ISBN13 9780198774389 (What's this?)   Pages 384 Publisher Oxford University Press   Volumes 1 Imprint Oxford University Press   Weight (grammes) 582 Format Paperback   Published in Oxford Publication date 27 May 1999   Height (mm) 234 Non-book description xiii, 363 p. ;   Width (mm) 156 Library of Congress HD3616.G73   Spine width (mm) 22 DEWEY 658   Academic level Professional / Scholarly

		List of Figures
		List of Tables
		Abbreviations
1		Introduction		1
2		Why Regulate?		9
3		Explaining Regulation		18
4		Regulatory Strategies		34
5		Who Regulates? Institutions and Structures		63
6		What is 'Good' Regulation?		76
7		The Cost-Benefit Testing of Regulation		86
8		Enforcing Regulation		96
9		Setting Standards		118
10		Self-Regulation		125
11		Regulating Risks		138
12		Regulation in the European Context		150
13		Regulatory Competition and Coordination		180
14		British Utilities Regulation: The Basic Structure		190
15		Price Setting in Natural Monopolies		203
16		Regulation versus Competition		210
17		Price-Capping Mechanisms		224
18		Measuring Efficiency: Benchmarking, Yardsticking, and Performance		239
19		Regulating Quality		248
20		Franchising and its Limitations		257
21		Accountability		286
22		Procedures and Fairness		314
23		Conclusions		334
		Select Bibliography		337
		Index		359

It is an excellently constructed work, and provides much food for thought for the times in which we live. New Law Journal The book is well researched and written with enough conviction to make a valuable contribution in developing our understanding of the choices regulation presents us with and the potential of new regulatory arrangements going forward. Matthew Berry, Financial Adviser Careers Extra Some of the material is very useful and not easily available in textbook form elsewhere ... a good way of catching up on the reforms in a variety of policy sectors and thinking in different disciplines. Public Administration

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