The Unanticipated Consequences of Creating Independent Competition Agencies

Wilks, Stephen; Bartle, Ian

doi:10.1080/713601589

Cited by 94 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…According to this logic, two IRAs are selected: the British competition commission (CC) and the Swiss competition commission (ComCo), both established at the beginning of the years 2000 with the official purpose of promoting 'nonmajoritarian' regulatory governance (Wilks and Bartle, 2002;Maggetti et al, 2011). Competition policy is a politically salient regulatory issue for electorally sensitive politicians (Elgie and McMenamin, 2005), when the functionalist logic of delegation is strong (Christensen and Yesilkagit, 2006), for which media coverage of credibility and efficiency should be particularly accurate.…”

Section: Case Selection and The Logic Of The Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

The media accountability of independent regulatory agencies

Maggetti

2011

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

120

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Independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) are increasingly attracting academic and societal attention, as they represent the institutional cornerstone of the regulatory state and play a key role in policy-making. Besides the expected benefits in terms of credibility and efficiency, these regulators are said to bring about a 'democratic deficit', following their statutory separation from democratic institutions. Consequently, a 'multi-pronged system of control' is required. This article focuses on a specific component of this system, that is, the media. The goal is to determine whether media coverage of IRAs meets the necessary prerequisites to be considered a potential 'accountability forum' for regulators. The results of a comparison of two contrasted cases -the British and Swiss competition commissions -mostly support the expectations, because they show that media coverage of IRAs corresponds to that of the most relevant policy issues and follows the regulatory cycle. Furthermore, a systematic bias in media coverage can be excluded.

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Section: Case Selection and The Logic Of The Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

The media accountability of independent regulatory agencies

Maggetti

2011

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

120

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“…Throughout the paper, we expect a regulatory authority neglecting this task to do so because of its interest in either financial and occupational amenities provided by 11 In line with this suspicion and our considerations, Wilks and Bartle (2002) argue that, instead of trying to influence authorities directly, regulatees rather try to interfere with regulations by inciting politicians to bias agency decisions in the affected companies' favor. the regulatees or additional, tax-funded appropriations.…”

Section: Interpretation Of the Results And Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Regulatory Objectives and the Intensity of Unbundling in Electricity Markets

Lindemann

2015

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: Despite the positive effect electricity grids separated from generation and supply by ownership are expected to have on the level of competition in the non-network activities, several EU member states still adhere to a solely legally unbundled transmission grid. This choice might be induced by regulators focusing on objectives other than the promotion of consumer interests: Terms of use: Documents in EconStor maytheoretically analyzing the decisions an authority takes on both the unbundling regime and the grid charge when it supervises a network monopolist providing a downstream Cournot duopoly with capacity, we find an agency pursuing consumer-oriented goals to always implement Ownership Unbundling. For a regulator acting in the interests of the industry or the government, though, results suggest the authority to be indifferent between Legal and Ownership Unbundling; minor potential drawbacks of a network separated by ownership for the agency or the companies might then tip the scales and cause the regulator to adhere to Legal Unbundling.JEL-classification: D73, L12, L13, L42, L50, L51, L94

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“…Based on Stigler's (1971) seminal paper claiming that politically influential industries are able to abuse state institutions to maximize the incumbents' profits, different strands of the capture approach solely blame the regulatees for welfare detrimental regulations: agency members are assumed to act in the interest of firms due to bribes (Laffont and Tirole, 1991), post-tenure job prospects in the industry (Che, 1995) or by intentionally applying biased information provided by the regulatees as a basis for regulatory decisions (Agrell and Gautier, 2010, 2012a, 2012b, while governments are expected to strive for welfare maximization only. However, despite the definite source of adverse regulations suggested by capture theory, focusing on political instead of industry interference by applying Gilardi's (2002) index should provide reliable results: at variance with the theoretical predictions, Wilks and Bartle (2002) argue that especially the prevention of political influence is crucial for obtaining effective regulators; regulatees try to interfere with authorities mostly only indirectly via politicians who are prone to yield to political pressures and are therefore exploited by suppliers as well as industrial lobbyists.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Does Regulatory Independence Translate into a Higher Degree of Liberalization? - Evidence from EU Energy Regulators

Lindemann

2015

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: Independent regulatory authorities are a basic prerequisite for a successful liberalization process. However, contrary to what is expected, both graphical analyses and OLS regressions for a small sample of electricity and gas regulators operating in 16 European countries reveal a negative relationship between the authorities' formal autonomy from politicians and the scope of market reforms. These findings might suffer from endogeneity, though, so we draw on political scientists' explanations for diverging independence levels to construct appropriate instruments. The 2SLS-IV results then confirm conventional wisdom: the higher the degree of regulatory autonomy, the higher the level of liberalization. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayJEL-classification: L50, L94, L95, L98

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The Unanticipated Consequences of Creating Independent Competition Agencies

Cited by 94 publications

References 5 publications

The media accountability of independent regulatory agencies

The media accountability of independent regulatory agencies

Regulatory Objectives and the Intensity of Unbundling in Electricity Markets

Does Regulatory Independence Translate into a Higher Degree of Liberalization? - Evidence from EU Energy Regulators

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