Regulatory Breakdown - by Cary Coglianese (Hardcover)

About the Book

With chapters written by some of the nation's foremost economists, political scientists, and legal scholars, Regulatory Breakdown brings clarity to the heated debate over regulation by dissecting the disparate causes of the current crisis as well as analyzing the most promising solutions to what ails the U.S. regulatory system.

Book Synopsis

Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation brings fresh insight and analytic rigor to what has become one of the most contested domains of American domestic politics. Critics from the left blame lax regulation for the housing meltdown and financial crisis--not to mention major public health disasters ranging from the Gulf Coast oil spill to the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion. At the same time, critics on the right disparage an excessively strict and costly regulatory system for hampering economic recovery. With such polarized accounts of regulation and its performance, the nation needs now more than ever the kind of dispassionate, rigorous scholarship found in this book.

With chapters written by some of the nation's foremost economists, political scientists, and legal scholars, Regulatory Breakdown brings clarity to the heated debate over regulation by dissecting the disparate causes of the current crisis as well as analyzing promising solutions to what ails the U.S. regulatory system. This volume shows policymakers, researchers, and the public why they need to question conventional wisdom about regulation--whether from the left or the right--and demonstrates the value of undertaking systematic analysis before adopting policy reforms in the wake of disaster.

Review Quotes

"Everybody talks about regulatory failure, but no one does much about it. This book investigates claims of regulatory breakdown in the United States and provides helpful clues as to what might be done."-- "Jerry Mashaw, Yale Law School"

"In the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Regulatory Breakdown addresses two vital questions: Why do catastrophic failures occur? What are the appropriate regulatory responses? Invaluable perspective on these thorny issues is provided by the fascinating and rigorous case studies and analyses in this insight-filled volume."-- "Robert A. Kagan, University of California, Berkeley"

About the Author

Cary Coglianese is Edward B. Shils Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Penn Program on Regulation, and coeditor of Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.