We ask whether regulation can usefully supplement litigation in a model of optimal social control of harmful …. We show that regulation can, in some circumstances, improve resource allocation. Regulatory preemption of litigation may …

Regulation of economic activity is ubiquitous around the world, yet standard theories predict it should be rather … uncommon. I argue that the ubiquity of regulation is explained not so much by the failure of markets, or by asymmetric … accounts for the ubiquity of regulation, for its growth over time, as well as for the fact that contracts themselves are …

regulation of entry, the regulation of labor, and the military draft are more extensive in countries with larger populations …We present a model of efficient regulation along the lines of Demsetz (1967). In this model, setting up and running … regulatory institutions takes a fixed cost, and therefore jurisdictions with larger populations affected by a given regulation …

During the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20th century, the United States replaced litigation by regulation as … enforcement strategy between litigation and regulation based on the idea that justice can be subverted with sufficient expenditure … environment of significant inequality of wealth and political power. The switch to regulation can then be seen as an efficient …

Regulation of economic activity is ubiquitous around the world, yet standard theories predict it should be rather … uncommon. I argue that the ubiquity of regulation is explained not so much by the failure of markets, or by asymmetric … accounts for the ubiquity of regulation, for its growth over time, as well as for the fact that contracts themselves are …

We propose an activity-generating theory of regulation. When courts make errors, tort litigation becomes unpredictable … and as such imposes risk on firms, thereby discouraging entry, innovation, and other socially desirable activity. When … risk, this type of regulation can raise welfare. …