Who Governs?: Legislatures, Bureaucracies, or Markets?

When we start to perceive that there is a problem in the market (such as monopoly, fraud or speculation), the legislature passes a law to correct it, a bureaucracy is created to interpret and enforce the new law, firms and other market participants comply, and the problem is solved. But is it? Are politicians’ promises and textbooks’ stories to be believed?

This book examines US economic history to demonstrate how the applications of laws are uncertain, affected by changing political and e...