Regulation and Its Reform / Edition 1

by Stephen Breyer

Overview

This book will become the bible of regulatory reform. No broad, authoritative treatment of the subject has been available for many years except for Alfred Kahn’s Economics of Regulation (1970). And Stephen Breyer’s book is not merely a utilitarian analysis or a legal discussion of procedures; it employs the widest possible perspective to survey the full implications of government regulation—economic, legal, administrative, political—while addressing the complex problems of administering regulatory agencies.

Only a scholar with Judge Breyer’s practical experience as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee could have accomplished this task. He develops an ingenious original system for classifying regulatory activities according to the kinds of problems that have called for, or have seemed to call for, regulation; he then examines how well or poorly various regulatory regimes remedy these market defects. This enables him to organize an enormous amount of material in a coherent way, and to make significant and useful generalizations about real-world problems.

Among the regulatory areas he considers are health and safety; environmental pollution, trucking, airlines, natural gas, public utilities, and telecommunications. He further gives attention to related topics such as cost-of-service ratemaking, safety standards, antitrust, and property rights. Clearly this is a book whose time is here—a veritable how-to-do-it book for administration deregulators, legislators, and the judiciary; and because it is comprehensive and superbly organized, with a wealth of highly detailed examples, it is practical for use in law schools and in courses on economics and political science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674753761
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1984
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	486
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Stephen Breyer was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1994 to 2022. He is now Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART 1: A Theory of Regulation

1. Typical Justifications for Regulation

2. Cost-of-Service Ratemaking

3. Historically Based Price Regulation

4. Allocation under a Public Interest Standard

5. Standard Setting

6. Historically Based Allocation

7. Individualized Screening

8. Alternatives to Classical Regulation

9. General Guidelines for Policy Makers

PART 2: Appropriate Solutions

10. Match and Mismatch

11. Mismatch: Excessive Competition and Airline Regulation

12. Mismatch: Excessive Competition and the Trucking Industry

13. Mismatch: Rent Control and Natural Gas Field Prices

14. Partial Mismatch: Spillovers and Environmental Pollution

15. Problems of a Possible Match: Natural Monopoly and Telecommunications

PART 3: Practical Reform

16. From Candidate to Reform

17. Generic Approaches to Regulatory Reform

Appendix 1: The Regulatory Agencies

Appendix 2: A Note on Administrative Law

Further Reading

Notes

Index

What People are Saying About This

A superb text for instructing law students on the practical context of administrative law.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

A book of central importance in the growing national debate over government regulation...that more than any other, is likely to shape the future course of the issue in the 1980s.

Senator Paul Laxalt

A solid contribution to the reform of regulation, approaching the subject with the incisiveness, lucidness, and logical thinking which is a Breyer hallmark.

Lloyd N. Cutler

The theories developed in this book undergird many of the deregulation reforms achieved over the past five years. They will have an even greater influence on the direction of regulation in the decade to come.

Alfred E. Kahn

This is an ambitious, impressive, and, I think, important book.

Louis B. Schwartz

A superb text for instructing law students on the practical context of administrative law.

Editorial Reviews

This is an ambitious, impressive, and, I think, important book.

Alfred E. Kahn

The theories developed in this book undergird many of the deregulation reforms achieved over the past five years. They will have an even greater influence on the direction of regulation in the decade to come.

Lloyd N. Cutler

A solid contribution to the reform of regulation, approaching the subject with the incisiveness, lucidness, and logical thinking which is a Breyer hallmark.

Senator Paul Laxalt

A book of central importance in the growing national debate over government regulation…that more than any other, is likely to shape the future course of the issue in the 1980s.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

A superb text for instructing law students on the practical context of administrative law.

Louis B. Schwartz

An excellent summary of regulatory practice and policy… It tells us how regulation works, when it fails, where it should be changed, and what to do to change it.

American Political Science Review