Suchergebnisse

Regulatory reform and competition policy are two important and inter-related areas of regulatory policy and public administration. Both can play a key role in improving the quality of regulation, and creating healthy and competitive markets and an attractive investment climate. This in turn leads to greater economic growth, employment and incomes. Part one of this paper discusses definitions and key issues associated with regulation, regulatory quality, and competition policy. This discussion focuses on competition policy as it relates to restrictions on competition and also pro-competitive regulation, which involves protecting consumers through economic regulation. Part two of this paper considers institutions and processes for implementing regulatory quality and competition policy agendas, including regulatory agencies, regulatory reform bodies, competition authorities and broader regulation-making processes. Part three notes the importance of assessing competition policy issues on a case-by-case basis and identifies the main objectives and features of competition policy. This includes a discussion about when competition policy issues are likely to play an important role in regulatory assessment and reform. Part four considers mechanisms for coordinating- where appropriate-competition policy and regulatory quality assessments, including undertaking competition assessments and providing advice to decision makers.

AbstractThis study assesses what causes American states to assume the authority to administer federal environmental programs within their borders, rather than leave implementation to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some observers have argued that interstate competition for mobile capital may motivate states to seek this authority so that they may reduce the regulatory burdens imposed on industrial polluters. Other scholars highlight the importance of intrastate political and economic factors or vertical influences emanating from federal officials. I argue that the relative importance of each of these classes of explanations will vary across environmental policy arenas, depending on the amount of implementation discretion that federal programs provide to state agencies. Results from event history analyses of two major environmental programs are generally, though not entirely, consistent with this theory.

Changes are afoot in Australia's federal arrangements concerning competition policy. While many of the proposals to enlarge the Commonwealth's sphere of influence are played out in the media, other shifts are more subtle. This article examines one of those areas of change. It looks at National Competition Policy and in particular, its regulatory reform components. It argues that the approach adopted in the 1995 agreement, which was characterised by broad principles, meticulous monitoring and substantial financial carrots, has provided the Commonwealth with a useful tool for effectively intervening in areas that have been until now, matters of state responsibility.

Examines international competition in regulatory policies; focus on environmental policy, EU asylum policy, transatlantic trade, and economic cooperation and competition; 6 articles. Contents: The puzzle of regulatory competition, by Claudio M. Radaelli; Competition and cooperation in environmental policy: individual and interaction effects, by Katharina Holzinger and Christoph Knill; European markets and national regulation: conflict and cooperation in British competition policy, by Nikolaos Zahariadis; Taking legal rules into consideration: EU asylum policy and regulatory competition, by Ségolène Barbou des Places; In whose interest? pressure group politics, economic competition and environmental regulation, by Thomas Bernauer and Ladina Caduff; Trading up in the transatlantic relationship, by Sebastiaan Princen.