Rethinking Market Regulation. Policy Lessons from other Disciplines Conclusions

Other disciplines increase our knowledge of when and how markets can be relied on to bring about optimal outcomes. They thereby make a significant contribution to the fine tuning of market regulation policies. Sometimes such fine tuning is in clear focused and well developed information strategies. For instance when limited consumer motivation and limited capacity to discern quality differences between competitors deem policies that simply increase the availability of information less effective; Or in the instance that increased transparency may lead to tacit collusion. Sometimes the fine tuning is in acknowledging that there is scope for increased reliance on implicit contracts or reputation mechanisms and in developing structures to foster such reliance. But most of all perhaps, the studies show that it is not only our understanding of to how to reach the social optimum, but also of what constitutes it, that may need to be regauged.