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 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 …

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 … legislation and adopt particular laws earlier in their history. We also find that specific types of regulation, including the …

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 …

We present new data on the regulation of entry of start-up firms in 85 countries. The data covers the number of … are extremely high in most countries. Countries with heavier regulation of entry have higher corruption and larger … have lighter regulation of entry. The evidence is inconsistent with public interest theories of regulation, but supports …

benefits politicians and bureaucrats. Djankov and his coauthors present new data on the regulation of the entry of start … with public interest theories of regulation, but supports the public choice view that regulating entry benefits politicians … the department to educate policymakers on the costs of regulation. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support …