While holding great promise, nanotechnology also raises concerns about currently unknown health and environmental risks. The lack of information about these potential risks poses distinct challenges for regulators, who need a clear understanding about problems in order to solve them. Under such...

Has the United States suffered a regulatory breakdown? The answer to this question might appear to be an obvious “yes.” Over the past several years, the nation has suffered not only a sustained economic downturn triggered by a cataclysmic financial crisis but also one of the worst...

“Meta-regulation” refers to deliberate efforts to induce private firms to create their own internal regulations—a regulatory strategy sometimes referred to as “management-based regulation” or even “regulation of self-regulation.” Meta-regulation is often presented as a flexible...

Researchers who evaluate ordinary dispute resolution procedures understandably ask whether disputants are eventually satisfied with the resulting outcomes. But how should they evaluate techniques for involving the public in regulatory policymaking, i.e., techniques such as comment solicitation,...

We analyze a little-studied regulatory approach that we call management-based regulation. Management-based regulation directs regulated organizations to engage in a planning process that aims toward the achievement of public goals, offering firms flexibility in how they achieve these goals. The...

Environmental regulators have embraced management-based regulation as a flexible instrument for addressing a range of important problems often poorly addressed by other types of regulations. Under management-based regulation, regulated firms must engage in management-related activities oriented...

For nearly a decade, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) considered its National Environmental Performance Track to be its “flagship” voluntary program — even a model for transforming the conventional system of environmental regulation. Since Performance Track's...

Law plays a central role in the management of risk in society. The rules adopted by regulatory agencies now affect nearly every facet of the economy, and as such regulation has motivated a substantial body of academic research. Law and economics research on regulation has, first, demonstrated...

Administrative law scholars and governmental reformers argue that advances in information technology will greatly expand public participation in regulatory policymaking. They claim that e-rulemaking, or the application of new technology to administrative rulemaking, promises to transform a...