Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The Rise of the Regulatory State in Latin America:
A Study of the Diffusion of Regulatory Reforms across Countries and Sectors

Abstract

This paper presents and analyzes the sweeping restructuring of the state in Latin America, using the notion of the rise of the Regulatory State. We present for the first time a database on the creation of regulatory agencies and their reform in 19 countries and 12 sectors over a period of 24 years (1979-2002). We aim to explain the rise of the Regulatory State in Latin America by reference to a distinction between sectoral and national patterns in the diffusion of autonomous regulatory authorities. While national patterns of diffusion imply that the number of prior regulatory authorities within a country will determine the probability of the establishment of new authorities in that country. Sectoral patterns predict that the establishment of new authorities will be determined by the number of regulatory authorities in the same sector in other countries. In order to test these conflicting predictions, we consider the effects of the establishment of regulatory authorities in (a) all sectors in all countries, (b) the same sector by other countries, and (c) other sectors in the relevant country. Thus, the results of the statistical analysis provide a direct measure of contagious patterns of diffusion, namely the effect of prior adoption on current adoption. This distinction is then used to shed light on the two important mechanisms that propel the process of diffusion: policy learning and policy emulation. While international organizations and actors that support and promote the new order usually highlight the first mechanism, critics of the current order usually underline the second mechanism. Our results provide some support for the importance of sectoral diffusion and for the role of emulation in the rise of the Regulatory State. These results coincide with a growing body of literature that emphasizes the role of contagious diffusion in the spread of policy reforms

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper asks "How has globalization affected safety standards in the rapidly industrializing context of Southeast Asia?” The question brings together crucial debates on globalization and regulation and challenges regulatory scholarship to take account of the complexities of globalization and regulation in newly emerging industrial states. Much regulatory research on globalization and its impact has focussed on advanced industrial and post-industrial states. However, a significant number of countries exhorted to use regulatory prescriptions that emerge, in part, from this research are industrializing, rather than industrialized, and face their own quite different and unique economic, political and historical challenges. The applicability of prescriptions widely accepted in the industrialized context to Southeast Asian countries are uncertain. This research on the regulatory aftermath of the Kader Toy Factory fire highlights why any assessment of regulatory ‘progress’ in a country in terms of the international spread of laws and regulations must also take account of context (or regulatory character). Pronouncements about how to regulate in the face of rapid economic, political and cultural change must be grounded in where the regulation is taking place - and by what process reform is achieved.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: I develop a typology of market failures and using an empirical study examine how failures of regulatory policy at the local level of government are often the result of a misdiagnosis of the type of market failure experienced.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The level of compliance in a regulatory environment is often portrayed as a function of the cooperation that develops between regulated entities and regulators. In this paper, we argue that agency design plays a critical role in inducing such cooperative outcomes. Specifically we argue that agency design choices on two dimensions, regional scale and decentralization of authority, structure an agency’s ability to engage in flexible enforcement and consequently to secure flexible compliance from the regulated community. Using an original data set on individual-level regulatory compliance in air pollution control, we show that state regional offices that have both larger scale and decentralized authority secure higher flexible compliance compared to any other institutional combination. Our findings underline the importance of design choices in facilitating cooperation in regulatory environments.