The Bush administration has asserted control over federal rulemaking in important ways. The Bush OIRA has reinvigorated the regulatory review process, exhibiting a willingness to revise proposed regulations that do not meet analytical requirements, and has required changes in a larger percentage...

As national and regional ICT strategies are put in place there is a need for appropriate policy instruments and institutions to oversee their implementation, including the growing number of national regulatory authorities for telecommunications. They have become important actors in creating and...

We analyze the role of cost complementarities in driving the overall impact of a recent hygiene-rating disclosure policy in the U.K. We develop a simple theoretical multitasking model, which serves as a platform for our empirical analysis. We conduct a counterfactual analysis, which reveals the...

This first cross-country analysis of the causes of corruption in religious organizations provides evidence in support of policy recommendations by Adam Smith. He argued that clergy are best constrained by competition among religious groups. Their appointment and promotion should, however, be...

Lessons learned from U.S. environmental law. Five best and five worst things in U.S. environmental law. "Third-mover advantage" by which legal systems may be do better by adopting legal devices after studying experience elsewhere. "Virtual regulation" by which incentives from regulatory system...

The Federal Communications Commission appears to be conducting a far-ranging data gathering effort concerning cable prices and analog-to-digital channel movements under the guise of individual complaint enforcement. The FCC's regular processes and procedures appear to have been perverted to...

We study how banks should protect their credit departments against the external influence from potential borrowers. We analyze four mechanisms that are widespread in practice: a credit board with unanimity or simple majority, a hierarchy and an advisory system. A bank faces a trade-off between...

Within a standard three-tier regulatory model, a benevolent principal delegates to a regulatory agency two tasks: the supervision of the firm's (two-type) costs and the arrangement of a pricing mechanism. The agency may have an incentive to manipulate information to the principal to share the...

When a customer can borrow from several competing banks, multiple lending raises default risk. If creditor rights are poorly protected, this contractual externality can generate novel equilibria with strategic default and rationing, in addition to equilibria with excessive lending or...

Despite the positive effect electricity grids separated from generation and supply by ownership are expected to have on the level of competition in the non-network activities, several EU member states still adhere to a solely legally unbundled transmission grid. This choice might be induced by...