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Regulatory Co-opetition


Daniel C. Esty


Yale Law School

Damien Geradin


George Mason University School of Law; Tilburg University - Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC); Covington & Burling LLP


Journal of International Economic Law, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pp. 235-255, 2000

Abstract:     
Regulatory reformers in the United States call for decentralization in the name of 'federalism'. In Europe, a similar sentiment advances under the banner of 'subsidiarity'. One of the underlying and critical theoretical premises of these two movements is the suggestion that 'regulatory competition' among horizontally arrayed governments will generate pressures for improved governmental efficiency in the regulatory realm. Critics have suggested that rather than welfare-enhancing competitive pressures, divergent regulatory standards may instead trigger a welfare-reducing 'race toward the bottom'. In this article we argue that both race-toward-the-bottom and regulatory competition theories are overstated from a descriptive point of view and unsatisfactory from a normative perspective. Regulatory theory must reflect the diversity and complexity of the world. Optimal governance thus requires a flexible mix of competition and cooperation between government actors as well as between governmental and non-governmental actors, along both horizontal and vertical dimensions. This enriched model of 'regulatory co-opetition' recognizes that sometimes regulatory competition will prove to be advantageous but in other cases some form of collaboration will produce superior results. In a world that is pluralistic, not simplistic, a combination of regulatory competition and cooperation will almost always be optimal.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 18

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Date posted: June 30, 2004  

Suggested Citation

Esty, Daniel C. and Geradin, Damien, Regulatory Co-opetition. Journal of International Economic Law, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pp. 235-255, 2000. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=228441

Contact Information

Daniel Cushing Esty (Contact Author)
Yale Law School ( email )
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520-8215
United States
203-432-1602 / 6256 (Phone)
203-432-4871 / 3817 (Fax)
Damien Geradin
George Mason University School of Law ( email )
3301 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
United States

George Mason Law School Logo

Tilburg University - Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC) ( email )
Warandelaan 2
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands
HOME PAGE: http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilec/
Covington & Burling LLP ( email )
1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20004-2401
United States
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