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The Formal Independence of Regulators: A Comparison of 17 Countries and 7 Sectors
Author(s) -
Gilardi Fabrizio
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1002/j.1662-6370.2005.tb00374.x
Subject(s) - delegate , delegation , veto , independence (probability theory) , credibility , politics , economics , agency (philosophy) , public economics , regulatory agency , political economy , political science , economic system , law and economics , public administration , sociology , law , social science , statistics , mathematics , computer science , programming language
This article seeks to explain the pattern of delegation to independent regulatory agencies in Western Europe. Two types of arguments are advanced to explain variations in the formal independence of regulators. Firstly, the need for governments to increase their credible commitment capacity may lead them to delegate regulation to an agency that is partly beyond their direct control. Secondly, delegation may be a response to the political uncertainty problem, which arises when governments are afraid of being replaced by another coalition with different preferences, which could decide to change existing policy choices. In addition, veto players may constitute a functional equivalent of delegation, since they influence policy stability and therefore tend to mitigate both the credibility and the political uncertainty problems. These arguments are consistent with the results of the empirical analysis of the formal independence of regulators in seventeen countries and seven sectors.