IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v10y2010i1n51.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Should Standards Be Set and Met?: On the Allocation of Regulatory Power in a Federal System

Author

Listed:
  • Lin C.-Y. Cynthia

    (University of California at Davis)

Abstract

Regulation often takes the form of a standard that can be met through the implementation of any of a number of different policies. This paper examines how the authority to set the standard and the authority to choose the combination of policies to meet the standard should be allocated between a central government and local governments. In the context of the United States, for example, should standards regarding such public goods as the environment or education be set and implemented by the federal government, by individual state governments, or by both? Because decisions about setting and/or meeting the standard can be non-contractible, an incomplete contracting approach is used. A central finding is that "conjoint federalism" (the central government sets the standard while the local governments meet the standard), which is the regulatory structure often used in federations such as the United States and the European Union, can be the least efficient form, while a reverse form of delegation, in which local governments choose their own individual standards which the central government then decides how to collectively meet, can be the most efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin C.-Y. Cynthia, 2010. "How Should Standards Be Set and Met?: On the Allocation of Regulatory Power in a Federal System," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:10:y:2010:i:1:n:51
    DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.2126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1682.2126
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1935-1682.2126?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
    2. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "A Reconsideration of Environmental Federalism," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 7, pages 125-156, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Olson, Mancur, Jr, 1969. "The Principle of "Fiscal Equivalence": The Division of Responsibilities among Different Levels of Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 479-487, May.
    4. Williamson, Oliver E, 1971. "The Vertical Integration of Production: Market Failure Considerations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 112-123, May.
    5. Sigman, Hilary, 2005. "Transboundary spillovers and decentralization of environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 82-101, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chang, Howard F. & Sigman, Hilary & Traub, Leah G., 2014. "Endogenous decentralization in federal environmental policies," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 39-50.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. François Bareille & Matteo Zavalloni, 2020. "Decentralisation of agri-environmental policy design," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 47(4), pages 1502-1530.
    2. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    3. García-Vega, María & Huergo, Elena, 2017. "Trust and technology transfers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 92-104.
    4. Robert Gibbons, 2010. "Inside Organizations: Pricing, Politics, and Path Dependence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 337-365, September.
    5. Berde, Éva, 2013. "A fundamentális transzformáció és a referenciapont szerepe a hiányos szerződések elméletében [The role of basic transformation and reference point in the theory of incomplete contracts]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 865-885.
    6. Yu Qi & Jinliang Yu, 2023. "Decentralization and local pollution activities: New quasi evidence from China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 115-159, January.
    7. Tianyou Hu & Siddharth Natarajan & Andrew Delios, 2021. "Sister cities, cross-national FDI, and the subnational FDI location decision," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(7), pages 1279-1301, September.
    8. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2014. "Contracts, Ownership, and Industrial Organization: Past and Future," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(suppl_1), pages 82-117.
    9. Will, Matthias Georg, 2011. "Change Management und nicht-monetäre Vergütungen: Wie der organisatorische Wandel das Mitarbeiterverhalten beeinflusst," Discussion Papers 2011-18, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    10. Wouter Dessein & Richard Holden, 2022. "Organizations with Power-Hungry Agents," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(S1), pages 263-291.
    11. Will, Matthias Georg, 2012. "Change Management und Interaktionspotentiale: Wie Rationalfallen den organisatorischen Wandel blockieren," Discussion Papers 2012-9, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    12. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    13. Aghion, Philippe & Dewatripont, Mathias & Legros, Patrick & Zingales, Luigi (ed.), 2016. "The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199826216.
    14. Kumar, Surender & Managi, Shunsuke, 2009. "Compensation for environmental services and intergovernmental fiscal transfers: The case of India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 3052-3059, October.
    15. Aristotelis Boukouras, 2015. "Separation of Ownership and Control: Delegation as a Commitment Device," Discussion Papers in Economics 15/02, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    16. Oliver Hart, 2011. "Thinking about the Firm: A Review of Daniel Spulber's The Theory of the Firm," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 101-113, March.
    17. Ilya Segal & Michael D.Whinston, 2012. "Property Rights [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    18. Fredriksson, Per G. & Mani, Muthukumara & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2006. "Environmental federalism : a panacea or Pandora's box for developing countries?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3847, The World Bank.
    19. Dessein, Wouter, 2012. "Incomplete Contracts and Firm Boundaries: New Directions," CEPR Discussion Papers 9019, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Zhang, Bing & Chen, Xiaolan & Guo, Huanxiu, 2018. "Does central supervision enhance local environmental enforcement? Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 70-90.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:10:y:2010:i:1:n:51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.