Public Good and Private Good

Abstract

Regulation is a topic which has been studied in several social science disciplines. It has long been a topic in economic theory, addressed under economic concept as “public good.” Regulation has also been studied as a subfield of sociology as the sociology of law. Regulation has also been studied in the interdisciplinary social science area of “political economy.” In all views, there is agreement that formally “regulation” is enacted legislation which is administered to constrain rights and allocate responsibilities by participants in a societal order which is being regulated. In the topic of “administrative law,” the term “rule-making” is used to characterize the process in which legislative and executive bodies create and implement rules of the game. Legislature sets broad policy mandates by passing laws, and then executive agencies create and implement detailed regulations. (See, e.g., Hall 2009.) In the USA, enacted on June 11, 1946, the Administrative Procedure Act (Public Law 79-404, 60 Statute 237) established how administrative agencies of the federal government may propose and establish regulations and how federal courts may review agency regulatory decisions (Administrative Procedure Act 1946).