IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v13y2019i4p540-560.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political interference and regulatory resilience in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Paulo Correa
  • Marcus Melo
  • Bernardo Mueller
  • Carlos Pereira

Abstract

Governments face a fundamental tradeoff between regulatory independence and control. Attempts of interference have the effect of reducing the system's level of commitment and credibility. On the other hand, an administration runs the risk that the autonomy delegated to regulators might be used to pursue outcomes that may harm their interests. This tradeoff is particularly relevant when there is an alternation of power with the arrival of a new political elite with different preferences. This paper uses data from a 2016 survey on regulatory governance applied to Brazilian regulatory agencies. This data is compared to a similar survey performed in 2005. The new survey results turn out to be surprisingly similar to those of a decade earlier, suggesting strong resilience of regulatory agencies despite significant attempts at political interference by powerful presidents. The factors explaining the resilience of regulatory governance in Brazil lie in its broader institutional endowment, which moderates the effects of executive interference.

Suggested Citation

  • Paulo Correa & Marcus Melo & Bernardo Mueller & Carlos Pereira, 2019. "Political interference and regulatory resilience in Brazil," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(4), pages 540-560, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:13:y:2019:i:4:p:540-560
    DOI: 10.1111/rego.12274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12274
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rego.12274?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isabell Koske & Faisal Naru & Philipp Beiter & Isabelle Wanner, 2016. "Regulatory management practices in OECD countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1296, OECD Publishing.
    2. Giandomenico Majone, 2000. "The Credibility Crisis of Community Regulation," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 273-302, June.
    3. Bortolotti, Bernardo & Cambini, Carlo & Rondi, Laura, 2013. "Reluctant regulation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 804-828.
    4. Mueller, Bernardo, 2001. "Institutions for commitment in the Brazilian regulatory system," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 621-643.
    5. Luis Andres & José Luis Guasch & Sebastián Lopez Azumendi, 2009. "Regulatory Governance and Sector Performance: Methodology and Evaluation for Electricity Distribution in Latin America," Chapters, in: Claude Ménard & Michel Ghertman (ed.), Regulation, Deregulation, Reregulation, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Bernardo Mueller & Carlos Pereira, 2002. "Credibility and the design of regulatory agencies in Brazil," Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Center of Political Economy, vol. 22(3), pages 449-472.
    7. Spiller, Pablo T & Tiller, Emerson H, 1997. "Decision Costs and the Strategic Design of Administrative Process and Judicial Review," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 347-370, June.
    8. Paulo Correa & Carlos Pereira & Bernardo Mueller & Marcus Melo, 2006. "Regulatory Governance in Infrastructure Industries: Assessment and Measurement of Brazilian Regulators," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7059, December.
    9. Levy, Brian & Spiller, Pablo T, 1994. "The Institutional Foundations of Regulatory Commitment: A Comparative Analysis of Telecommunications Regulation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 201-246, October.
    10. Lee J. Alston & Marcus André Melo & Bernardo Mueller & Carlos Pereira, 2016. "Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10745.
    11. Christiane Arndt & Antonia Custance Baker & Tobias Querbach & Rebecca Schultz, 2015. "2015 Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance: Design, Methodology and Key Results," OECD Regulatory Policy Working Papers 1, OECD Publishing.
    12. March, James G. & Olsen, Johan P., 1998. "The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 943-969, October.
    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. Cyril Benoît, 2021. "Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(S1), pages 8-22, November.

    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. Laura Abrardi & Cambini Carlo & Rondi Laura, 2018. "The Impact of Regulation on Utilities’ Investments: A Survey and New Evidence from the Energy Industry," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 41-62, March.
    2. Cambini, Carlo & Franzi, Donata, 2013. "Independent regulatory agencies and rules harmonization for the electricity sector and renewables in the Mediterranean region," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 179-191.
    3. Marques, Rui Cunha & Pinto, Francisco Silva, 2018. "How to watch the watchmen? The role and measurement of regulatory governance," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 73-81.
    4. Imam, M. & Jamasb, T. & Llorca, M. & Llorca, M., 2018. "Power Sector Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Electricity Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1801, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Liam Wren-Lewis, 2015. "Do Infrastructure Reforms Reduce the Effect of Corruption? Theory and Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 353-384.
    6. Correa, Paulo & Melo, Marcus & Mueller, Bernardo & Pereira, Carlos, 2008. "Regulatory governance in Brazilian infrastructure industries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 202-216, May.
    7. Ghosh, Ranjan & Kathuria, Vinish, 2016. "The effect of regulatory governance on efficiency of thermal power generation in India: A stochastic frontier analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 11-24.
    8. Mustafa Durakoglu, S., 2011. "Political institutions of electricity regulation: The case of Turkey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5578-5587, September.
    9. Soroush, Golnoush & Cambini, Carlo & Jamasb, Tooraj & Llorca, Manuel, 2021. "Network utilities performance and institutional quality: Evidence from the Italian electricity sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    10. Cheng, Kuo-Tai, 2016. "Test of the mediating effects of regulatory decision tools in the communications regulator," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 277-289.
    11. Carlo Cambini & Laura Rondi, 2017. "Independent Agencies, Political Interference, And Firm Investment: Evidence From The European Union," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 281-304, January.
    12. Berthold Rittberger, 2003. "Removing conceptual blinders: Under what conditions does the ‘democratic deficit’ affect institutional design decisions?," The Constitutionalism Web-Papers p0023, University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science.
    13. repec:gig:joupla:v:2:y:2010:i:1:p:3-30 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Marzano, Riccardo, 2015. "One more ride on the merry-go-round! Public ownership and delayed competition in local public services," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 981-996.
    15. Imam, Mahmud I. & Jamasb, Tooraj & Llorca, Manuel, 2019. "Sector reforms and institutional corruption: Evidence from electricity industry in Sub-Saharan Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 532-545.
    16. Andrés Pavón Mediano, 2020. "Agencies’ formal independence and credible commitment in the Latin American regulatory state: A comparative analysis of 8 countries and 13 sectors," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(1), pages 102-120, January.
    17. Mariana Mota Prado, 2012. "Implementing independent regulatory agencies in Brazil: The contrasting experiences in the electricity and telecommunications sectors," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(3), pages 300-326, September.
    18. Dubois, Ute, 2009. "Adaptability of competitive electricity reforms a modular analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1213-1221, April.
    19. Martin, Brandie L. & Jayakar, Krishna, 2013. "Moving beyond dichotomy: Comparing composite telecommunications regulatory governance indices," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 691-701.
    20. Carlo Cambini & Yossi Spiegel, 2016. "Investment and Capital Structure of Partially Private Regulated Firms," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 487-515, April.
    21. Glen Dowell & Brad Killaly, 2009. "Effect of Resource Variation and Firm Experience on Market Entry Decisions: Evidence from U.S. Telecommunication Firms' International Expansion Decisions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 69-84, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:reggov:v:13:y:2019:i:4:p:540-560. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    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.