Law Commons^™

Against Regulatory Displacement: An Institutional Analysis Of Financial Crises, Jonathan C. Lipson

Jonathan C. Lipson

This paper uses “institutional analysis”—the study of the relative capacities of markets, courts, and regulators—to make three claims about financial crises.

First, financial crises are increasingly a problem of “regulatory displacement.” Through the ad hoc rescues of 2008 and the Dodd-Frank reforms of 2010, regulators displace market and judicial processes that ordinarily prevent financial distress from becoming financial crises. Because regulators are vulnerable to capture by large financial services firms, however, they cannot address the pathologies that create crises: market concentration and complexity. Indeed, regulators may inadvertently aggravate these conditions through resolution tactics that consolidate firms, and the volume and …

Revenue Adequacy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, John W. Mayo

John W Mayo

Abstract: The concept of “revenue adequacy” made its way into the legal governance of the rail industry prior to the industry’s substantial deregulation via the Staggers Rail Act in 1980. This seemingly quiet feature of rail legislation has, however, increasingly grown central to the regulatory-deregulatory fault line in the 21st century rail industry. This paper examines the concept of revenue adequacy, a benchmark of United States railroad firms' financial performance calculated annually by regulatory oversight bodies. The paper addresses questions around the origins, measurement, informational provisions, value and policy benefits and costs of revenue adequacy. An examination of the historical …

The Unintended Consequences Of Safety Regulation, Sherzod Abdukadirov

Sherzod Abdukadirov

This study examines how risk trade-offs undermine safety regulations. Safety regulations often come with unintended consequences in that regulations attempting to reduce risk in one area may increase risks elsewhere. The increases in countervailing risks may even exceed the reduction in targeted risks, leading to a policy that does more harm than good. The unintended consequences could be avoided or their impacts minimized through more careful analysis, including formal risk trade-off analysis, consumer testing, and retrospective analysis. Yet agencies face strong incentives against producing better analysis; increased awareness of risk trade-offs would force agencies to make unpalatable and politically sensitive …

New Powers- New Vulnerabilities? A Critical Analysis Of Market Inquiries Performed By Competition Authorities, Tamar Indig, Michal Gal

Michal Gal

In the past two decades the number of jurisdictions which have empowered their Competition Authorities to engage in market inquiries (MIs) has grown substantially. Although jurisdictions differ in the scope and procedure adopted for such studies, they all share an important common trait: attempting to allocate the roots of limited competition in the studied market. Market studies differ from traditional competition law tools in their triggers, range, object, and the level of pro-activity of the Competition Authority. They are not triggered by a suspicion of anti-competitive conduct of specific firm(s), but rather allow the Authority to use a broad prism …