Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Behavioral Economics: Implications For Regulatory Behavior, William E. Kovacic, James C. Cooper
Behavioral Economics: Implications For Regulatory Behavior, William E. Kovacic, James C. Cooper
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Behavioral economics (BE) examines the implications for decision-making when actors suffer from biases documented in the psychological literature. This article considers how such biases affect regulatory decisions. The article posits a simple model of a regulator who serves as an agent to a political overseer. The regulator chooses a policy that accounts for the rewards she receives from the political overseer — whose optimal policy is assumed to maximize short-run outputs that garner political support, rather than long-term welfare outcomes — and the weight the regulator puts on the optimal long run policy. Flawed heuristics and myopia are likely to …
Outpost Years For A Start-Up Agency: The Ftc From 1921-1925, William E. Kovacic, Marc Winerman
Outpost Years For A Start-Up Agency: The Ftc From 1921-1925, William E. Kovacic, Marc Winerman
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The challenges and questions surrounding the design of a competition system are part of an identifiable life cycle that characterizes the development of a competition agency. The core challenges are to set priorities and execute them, but there are various potential obstacles. This article looks at the FTC’s experiences in its first decade, a period bringing extraordinary technological dynamism that reshaped the U.S. economy and transitions in political leadership, to shed light on how a new or reformed agency might go about facing predictable problems in its first years and to suggest how these agencies can improve their effectiveness.
New …