Studying the Past to Plan for the Future : A Case Study Analysis of the Unintended and Indirect Effects of Regulation on Productivity
Within the debate on the UK 'productivity gap' regulation has been identified as a potential cause. This paper investigates the effect of regulation on productivity by exclusively focusing on indirect, unintended and/or unforeseen effects. First we develop a conceptual framework, then we use this to identify, through literature research, all major historical case studies addressing unintended and/or indirect effects. Our analysis of these cases suggests that several kinds of effects regulation can have on productivity have been largely ignored in the literature. Moreover UK research is almost exclusively focused on a few specific forms (privatizations) and industries (utilities), compared to US research