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Good regulation is essential, to protect employees, consumers and the public, as well as the environment. To argue that the market should be allowed to be the determinant of working conditions, together with a bit of exhortation to employers to behave decently, is to accept the Victorian approach that allowed children to work in coal mines.The massive problems in the finance sector recently also show only too well the impact of weak regulation and de-regulation.That said, Governments do not always get it right when they do regulate and there is undoubtedly some regulation that is no longer necessary, or is out of date, or is over-complicated or hard to enforce. Neither have Governments showed themselves to be very good at assessing public risk or balancing public health and environment protection with innovation and growth. As the former Risk and Regulation Advisory Council suggested, risk is often assessed through the prism of media sensationalism, political point scoring, civil service attachment to legislation and "risk mongers" such as insurance companies that have a vested interest in talking up risk.

Compared to economics, sociology, political science, and law, the discipline of history has had a limited role in the wide-ranging efforts to reconsider strategies of regulatory governance, especially inside regulatory institutions. This article explores how more sustained historical perspective might improve regulatory decisionmaking. We first survey how a set of American regulatory agencies currently rely on historical research and analysis, whether for the purposes of public relations or as a means of supporting policymaking. We then consider how regulatory agencies might draw on history more self-consciously, more strategically, and to greater effect. Three areas stand out in this regard -- the use of history to improve understanding of institutional culture; reliance on historical analysis to test the empirical plausibility of conceptual models that make assumptions about the likelihood of potential economic outcomes; and integration of historical research methods into program and policy evaluation. Adapted from the source document.

Denmark's large welfare state and its open market economy have successfully delivered relatively high standards of living. Danish regulatory reform has proceeded with many pragmatic steps that have contributed to solid economic performance, management of economic and social adjustment to changing conditions, and improved efficiency of government services. However, sheltered sectors, including service industries, still suffer from co-operation and price fixing, contributing to high consumer prices. The competition regime is weaker than in many other countries, and so are regulatory regimes in a

What were the market and regulatory issues that led to the subprime crisis? How should prudential regulation be fixed? The answers depend on the interpretive lenses--or 'paradigms'--through which one sees finance. The agency paradigm, which has dominated recent regulatory policy and provides the most popular interpretation of the crisis, seems to be influencing much of the emerging reform agenda. But collective welfare failures (particularly externalities) and collective cognition failures (particularly mood swings) were as important, if not more so, in driving the crisis. These three paradigms should therefore be integrated into a more balanced policy agenda. But doing so will be difficult because they often have inconsistent policy implications.

At the end of 1997, Korea suffered one of the worst economic crises ever experienced by an OECD country. An ambitious programme of regulatory, financial, and structural reforms, among the most far-reaching efforts at reform of regulation undertaken in OECD countries, was key to the strong economic recovery in 1999 and 2000. This programme not only stabilised the crisis, but also helped recreate the foundations for future sustainable growth. The Korean experience can be useful to other countries seeking to boost market-led growth. Reforms now are moving Korea from a highly interventionist and a

After ten years of determined reform, Hungary has constructed the legal and policy frameworks consistent with market democracy, and is nearing completion of an historic economic transition. This challenging process required extensive regulation and institution building, as well as massive deregulation, and has generated significant economic benefits. Today, convergence with the EU and achievement of OECD best practices still represent daunting tasks. But in most areas, Hungary faces challenges much like those of other OECD countries in establishing the quality regulatory regimes needed to supp