Routine and its limitations’ completes a short cycle of three blogs with a common, thematic root: dysfunctions in the division of labour within governmental systems. The focus in this case is on a temporal pattern that can be observed in the evolution of some regulatory agencies or systems. It adopts Daniel Kahneman’s metaphor of System 1 and System 2 thinking, but uses it to characterise institutional and organisational, rather than individual, thinking.
The latest Insights blog is concerned with narrowness of vision in economic policy/regulation and the distraction that is a contributory cause of it. It is motivated by the question: how might better institutional design counteract distraction? Features of Monasteries, Plato’s Academy and Roman Watchtowers are cited as examples of ancient institutional innovations from which insights might be gleaned.
The second in the new Insights into Regulation series of short blogs addresses the causes and effects of a highly dysfunctional ‘division of labour’ in government, with a focus on misdirection and distraction in the application of effort The title is taken from Hamlet’s soliloquy (“To be, or not to be …) and the notion of the insolence of officialdom was, at a later time, a repeated trope in the major works of Adam Smith.
In a new series of short blogs under the thematic title ‘Insights into Regulation’, members of the Regulatory Policy Institute Research Group will highlight a particular insight, idea or perspective that is salient to some or other aspect of regulatory policy. Given the observed limitations of quantitative emissions reduction agreements, we explore the role of complementary science and technology approaches based on sharing of knowledge and know-how in mitigating relevant externalities.
The Zeeman Lecture at the September 2021 Conference on 'Rethinking Regulation' was delivered by Ed Humpherson -Director General for Regulation, UK Statistics Authority. This is a transcript of that lecture. A couple of years ago, back when it was possible to travel freely without worrying about masks, infections and tests, I was on a train journey south from Edinburgh. As is the way with long train journeys in the UK, there was some horrendous disruption; and as is also the way, this disruption broke the invisible veil that holds British people back from talking to one another, and lots of conversations started – proceeding from the usual starting point of “bloody typical” to broader chats – where are you going, what do you do?
In this short paper, Gerard Fox and George Yarrow argue that, in the context of climate change policies, the nature and significance of any potentially problematic economic externalities are functions of strategic policy choices: that is, they vary according to the particular policy strategy chosen. The traditionally identified externality – that the benefits of carbon abatement efforts by any one country are mostly enjoyed by other countries – comes from strategies that are conceptualised in terms of determining quantities (of carbon emissions or abatement), an approach to economic policy that was adopted in Soviet-style central planning. By leading to external effects that then call for difficult-to-achieve correction, in effect the quantitative planning system establishes self-created obstacles to attaining that which is desired. Science and technology policy approaches based on sharing of knowledge and know- how are shown to have very different implications for the nature and significance of any associated externalities. The development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is given as an example of the possible, alternative, strategic approaches.
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (“WoN”) is a foundational book in the social sciences and one of the classic works of human civilization, but like many classics it is rarely read. Its influence has been profound, but that influence has come largely via the work of Smith’s successors who, in their own writings, have frequently cherry picked the text in ways that have served their own, particular purposes in a range of different, later contexts. In consequence many of Smith’s own points have been lost or distorted...
The UK Competition and Markets Authority in 2016 calculated a detriment of £1.4 billion–£2 billion in Great Britain’s retail energy market, attributed to weak customer response. The government in 2019 imposed a tariff cap until competition is effective. Stephen Littlechild argues that the cap was a mistake: there was no such detriment and there are valid reasons for customers not changing supplier. The market was not previously uncompetitive and inefficient as suggested. The cap has rendered the sector loss-making and led to supplier exit. The assessments of effective competition by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets have been arbitrary and implausible. Some alternative ways ahead are noted, but latest government policy invokes behavioural economics to propose even greater intervention. A postscript discusses dramatic latest developments.
This research project is focused on how well suited are regulatory models in adapting to dynamic change, a more interventionist state or exogenous shocks like covid or the financial crisis. Can the regulatory environment accommodate strategic policy initiative like decarbonisation, promotion of technological innovation or activist industrial policy without its function being impaired? This leads to questions concerning the nature of the regulator's institutional ecology and will demonstrate the potential for truly effective reform. It would also provide an understanding of their organisational capacity to achieve its key objectives.
Should we establish ex ante economic regulation of ‘digital platforms’, with or without ‘enhanced’ competition law – and what form should any regulatory structures take? This question is a pressing priority for policymakers and competition authorities in many jurisdictions, including the UK and across the EU. We can all see the extent to which services offered by digital platforms (large and small, generalised and highly specialised) now mediate most distanced interactions between people and/or organisations, whether it is economic, in civil society or in our private lives. The aim of this work is to foster contributions to the policy debate concerning the economic regulation of digital platforms. The anticipated focus is on economic regulation specifically, meaning ex ante rules designed to rectify market failures or abuses rather than, for example, regulation of online content or political speech). However, it may be that some areas of research necessarily involve ‘cross-over’ questions between economic and non-economic regulatory issues.