The Tools of Regulation (Paperback)

Good policy is all very well but it is meaningless without good execution. The Tools of Regulation focuses on execution: what processes and tools are available to government regulators to achieve regulatory outcomes?

Six broad approaches are adopted to analyse and classify regulatory tools: economic, transactional, authorisational, structural, informational and legal. These tools not only include the traditional 'command and control' statutory methods, but also taxes and charges, subsidies, licences, accreditations, contracts, grants and information campaigns as forms of regulation.

Regulation, under this conception, is not just about enforcement but about the prosaic, day-to-day factors that operate to influence behaviour and produce regulatory outcomes. These factors form the 'webs of influence' that operate at different times and in different contexts to produce 'normal' behaviour. These influences include market forces, social norms, ethics, codes of conduct and practice, guidelines, standards, business processes and technological constraints.

Regulation is as much about regularity as it is about deviance.

For a busy practitioner, regulator or regulatee or novice scholar the theoretical literature can be challenging and obscure. This book provides them with a practical, simple and accessible guide to modern regulation in whatever field of regulation they are interested.