Government Regulations

6 Key excerpts on "Government Regulations"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Running the Government

  Public Administration and Governance in Global Context

  • Salvatore Schiavo-Campo(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The narrow definition of regulation is “a rule or order prescribed by a superior government authority relating to the actions of those under the authority’s control”. More broadly, a government regulation is a rule that controls the way in which a business or an industry can operate. By any definition, and most important for the principle of separation of powers, government regulation must flow from an identified law and must have a public purpose.

  There are three broad categories of regulations:

  • Economic regulations, that directly affect the market, e.g., rules on competition, market entry or exit, pricing, employment, contract enforcement, and access to credit;
  • Social regulations to protect public interests, such as the environment, health, safety, and so on (e.g., health warnings on cigarettes);
  • Administrative regulations, through which government collects information on a variety of subjects and intervenes in individual cases under specified criteria.

  Regulations are promulgated by different governmental entities. Legislative delegation of regulatory powers to the executive branch is an accepted feature of most countries’ public administration.

  Central government regulatory power may be administered by the concerned government department itself or delegated to specialized agencies. (The last section of this chapter gives a partial list of the permanent regulatory bodies in the United States and their purposes.) Monitoring of compliance with regulations also can be done directly by the government or contracted out to private entities – although care is needed lest the presumed efficiency advantages are nullified by loss of accountability and reduction in service quality. (Contracting out, or outsourcing, is discussed in Chapter 13 .)

  Provincial and local governments are a major source of regulation as well, either under their own authority or through the delegated management of national programs. In fact, it is subnational regulations that affect most activities of daily importance to the citizen – licenses, land use, building codes, and so on.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  What Entrepreneurs Need to Know about Government

  A Guide to Rules and Regulations

  • Wesley B. Truitt(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  PART II Compliance: What Government Makes Business Do T ine purpose of this part is to provide the entrepreneur with assistance in identifying and understanding the myriad rules and regulations that government requires of businesses. Virtually every action an entrepreneur takes has some federal, state, or local government rule or regulation connected with it. Knowing what these are and how to deal with them is a vital task of the business leader. This part is intended to assist you with that task. Compliance with these rules and regulations is required by law and, de- pending on the size of the firm and the nature of the violation, noncompli- ance can result in severe penalties. The next four chapters present federal rules and regulations, and the fifth chapter in this part covers state and local gov- ernment regulations. During each phase of a firm's life, there is a set of federal rules that ap- ply. For start-up firms, discussed in chapter 5, regulations are presented that pertain to the nature of the business, type of business entity, workplace se- lection, preparations for hiring a workforce, protection of company and brand names (if any) and assurance they are not already protected by another, and preparation for becoming a tax collector. For established firms, discussed in chapter 6, rules and regulations per- taining to ongoing operations are presented: employee issues, product safety, labor health and safety, fair practices, EPA issues, financial reporting, and taxes. Chapter 7 discusses another set of rules and regulations that apply for businesses seeking to expand: merger and acquisition, antitrust, monopoli- zation, vertical and horizontal market restriction, employee benefits, and environmental law impacts. 86 COMPLIANCE: WHAT GOVERNMENT MAKES BUSINESS Do For business divestiture, owners looking to sell or liquidate, there is a fi- nal set of rules presented in chapter 8 regarding disclosure, employee ben- efits, EPA cleanup, and antitrust.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  One-armed Economist

  On the Intersection of Business and Government

  • Murray Weidenbaum(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It is hard to overestimate the current rapid expansion of government involvement in business in the United States. Certainly the majority of public policy changes affecting business-government relations in recent years has been in the direction of greater governmental intervention—environmental controls, job safety inspections, equal employment opportunity enforcement, consumer product safety regulations, energy restrictions, and recording and reporting of items ranging from illnesses to foreign currency transactions. Indeed, when we attempt to look at the emerging business-government relationship from the business executive’s viewpoint, a very considerable public presence is evident in what ostensibly, or at least historically, have been private affairs.

  No one who operates a business today, neither the head of a large company nor the corner grocer, can do so without considering a multitude of governmental restrictions and regulations. Costs and profits can be affected as much by a bill passed in Washington as by a management decision in the front office or a customer’s decision at the checkout counter. Management decisions fundamental to the business enterprise are increasingly becoming subject to governmental influence, review, or control, decisions such as: What lines of business to go into? What products can be produced? Which investments can be financed? Under what conditions can products be produced? Where can they be made? How can they be marketed? What prices can be charged? What profit can be made?

  Virtually every major department of the typical industrial corporation in the United States has one or more counterparts in a federal agency that controls or strongly influences its internal decision-making. The scientists in corporate research laboratories now receive much of their guidance from lawyers in federal, state, and local regulatory agencies. The engineers in manufacturing departments must abide by standards promulgated by Labor Department authorities. Marketing divisions must follow procedures established by government administrators in product safety agencies. The location of facilities must be in conformance with a variety of environmental statutes. The activities of personnel staffs are increasingly restricted by the various executive agencies concerned with employment conditions. Finance departments often bear the brunt of the rising paperwork burden being imposed on business by government agencies who seem to assume that information is a free good—or in any event that more is always better than less.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Business, Government and Globalization

  • Owen E. Hughes, Deirdre O'Neill(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 4 Regulation Introduction Regulation is at the core of the relationship between business and government and is perhaps the main reason why a perpetual state of tension exists between the two. Government regulation of busi-ness activity is constantly debated in terms of purpose, scope and means. In this debate, two issues are generally prominent: first, the extent to which government should use the coercive powers of the state to regulate economic activity; and second, whether it is legiti-mate for regulation to have social as opposed to economic objec-tives. Neither of these issues is ever completely resolved. This chapter will discuss how the regulatory relationship between business and government is evolving. Although it is fashionable to suggest that the overall trend is for governments to regulate less, this does not always seem to occur. It is true that there is an inter-national trend for governments to disengage from some forms of regulation, but this has generally been accompanied by a corre-sponding increase in other forms of regulation. In this sense, regu-lation may seem as pervasive as ever. But concern about the amount of regulation tends to distract attention from what is perhaps of greater significance – namely, the effectiveness of regu-lation. Regulation can take many forms and it cannot be assumed that all of these will be equally effective. Indeed, it is possible that a regulatory instrument will exacerbate or compound the problem it was meant to address. Knowing when to regulate, whom to regu-late and how to regulate are surely some of the most difficult chal-lenges confronting any government. What is regulation? There are so many forms of regulation that a universal definition initially seems elusive. The OECD (2000, p. 9) defines regulation 64 as ‘the diverse set of instruments by which governments establish requirements for enterprises and citizens’.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Future of Business

  Global Issues in the 80s and 90s

  • Max Ways(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  Rather, the line operating bureaus of government - the Departments of Agriculture, Com-merce, Energy, Health-Education-Welfare, Interior, Justice, Labor, Trans-portation, and Treasury - are now involved in actions that affect virtually every firm. Certainly the majority of public policy changes influencing business-government relations in recent years has been in the direction of greater governmental involvement - environmental controls, job safety inspections, equal employment opportunity enforcement, consumer product safety regu-lations, energy restrictions, and recording and reporting of items varying from domestic illnesses to foreign currency transactions. Indeed, when we attempt to look at the emerging business-government relationship from the business executive's viewpoint, a very considerable public presence is evident in what ostensibly, or at least historically, have been private matters. Few businesses, large or small, can operate without considering a myriad of government restrictions and regulations. Costs and profits can be affected as much by a regulation written by a government official as by their own management decisions or their customers' changing preferences. The types of management decisions which increasingly are subject to governmental influence, review, or control are fundamental to the business system: What lines of business to go into? What products can be produced? Which investments can be financed? Under what conditions can products be produced? Where can they be made? How can they be marketed? What prices can be charged? What profit can be kept? Virtually every major department of the typical corporation in the United States has one or more counterparts in a federal agency that controls, or strongly influences, its internal decision making (see Fig. 1): The scientists in corporate research laboratories now receive much of their guidance from lawyers in regulatory agencies dealing with various aspects of technological innovation.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Encyclopedia of Policy Studies, Second Edition

  • Stuart Nagel(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  What is regulation? In this chapter regulation should be taken to mean economic regulation, even when that adjective is not included. A well-known text on public policies states, “Regulation is what regulators do” (Shepard and Wilcox, 1979). A definition of that sort is catchy, perhaps, but it aids little in understanding. Shepard and Wilcox do go on to provide some amplification:

  To regulate has at least three definitions. One is tough and unilateral: “to govern or direct according to rule.” Another refers to compromise and smoothing over: “to reduce to order … to regularize.” And another is superficial, perhaps empty: “to make regulation.” Actual regulation varies among these, sometimes strict, sometime strict, sometimes trivial or even a tool of corporate interests.

  The third definition is logically deduced from their statement, “Regulation is what regulators do.” There is, however, nothing to be gained from belaboring this. Something better is needed.

  Lawyers and economists often distinguish antitrust policy, which is intended to maintain competitive conditions in the economy, from regulation. What it is that differentiates these two categories of government action is not made clear. One is just left with the notion that there is a difference between government efforts to maintain competition and regulatory programs, such as regulation of railroads by the Interstate Commerce Commisssion (ICC). In an important sense there is. Antitrust law lays down some basic rules of the economic game— for examples, “Thou shalt not monopolize” and “Thou shalt not collude to restrain trade.” Within this framework of rules, businesses are free to act and to compete or not compete as they choose. Regulation of railroads by the ICC went considerably further, however, and really involved the agency in the management of the railroads. Decisions to raise rates, to abandon service, to issue new securities, and other matters required ICC approval. Control of the railroads, in short, was more intensive and intrusive than antitrust, and ICC judgment could be substituted for railroad judgment.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book