This paper examines the role of the information contained in stock prices in the regulation of privatized firms. Stock prices contain noisy but unbiased information about firm's future prospects that regulators can use to decide on some regulatory policies. The main argument developed is that the observation of stock price movements reduces the incentives of regulators to develop their own monitoring technologies and can allow them to commit to relatively lighthanded regulations. This protects firm's investments in cost reduction activities and can increase ex ante welfare

This article studies access regulation to international large-value payment systems when banking supervision is national. We focus on the choice between net and real-time gross settlement. As a novel feature, the communication between the public authorities is endogenized. It is shown that the national authorities' incentives are not perfectly aligned concerning the settlement method. Therefore public regulation fails to implement the first-best access criteria. Banks prefer net settlement too often due to limited liability. Still, if banks have superior information about their counterparties, private involvement in access regulation is desirable as it reveals information to the public authorities

This article studies access regulation to international large-value payment systems when banking supervision is national. We focus on the choice between net and real-time gross settlement. As a novel feature, the communication between the public authorities is endogenized. It is shown that the national authorities’ incentives are not perfectly aligned concerning the settlement method. Therefore public regulation fails to implement the first-best access criteria. Banks prefer net settlement too often due to limited liability. Still, if banks have superior information about their counterparties, private involvement in access regulation is desirable as it reveals information to the public authorities

In this paper we examine whether regulation can be used to substitute for internal monitoring mechanisms (percentage of outside directors, officer and director common stock ownership, and CEO/Chair duality) to control for agency conflicts in a firm. We find that, in general, the percentage of outside directors is negatively related to insider stock ownership, but is not affected by CEO/Chair duality. CEO/Chair duality is, however, less likely when insider stock ownership increases. We find these internal monitoring mechanisms to be significantly less related with regulated firms (banks and utilities). We conclude that to the extent that regulations reduce the impact of managerial decisions on shareholder wealth, effective internal monitoring of managers becomes less important in controlling agency conflicts

I examine the effects of FCC regulation on the innovation and introduction of advanced telecommunications services in the United States. An interim of lighter regulation provides an "experiment" to test the regulatory regime's impact. The econometric model comprises an arrival process (for service innovation) followed by a duration process (for regulatory delay). The number of services the firms created during the interim is 60%-99% higher than the model predicts they would have created if the stricter regulation had still been in place. Overall, firms would have introduced 62% more services to consumers during the study period if the regulation had not been in place

Countries differ significantly in the way in which they regulate the entry of new businesses. To meet government requirements for starting to operate a business in Austria, an entrepreneur must complete 12 procedures taking at least 154 business days and pay US$11,612 in government fees. To do the same, an entrepreneur in Bolivia needs to follow 20 different procedures, pay US$2,696 in fees to the government and wait at least 82 business days to acquire the necessary permits. In contrast, an entrepreneur in Canada can finish the process in roughly 2 days by paying US$280 in government fees and completing only 2 procedures

Are product market and entry regulation key sources of low employment growth in many European countries? We investigate this question in the context of the French retail trade industry. Since 1974, approval by regional zoning boards has been required for the creation or extension of any large retain store in France. We exploit a unique database that provides time- and region-specific variation in boards' approval decisions. We show that stronger deterrence of entry by the boards increased retailer concentration and slowed down employment growth in France

This paper contrasts the conventional interpretation of prudential capital regulation as a system of ex ante enforcement (`hard wired') with an alternative interpretation as a system of sanctions for ex post violation (`incentive based'). Under the incentive based interpretation risk-weightings affect portfolio choice only when assets are illiquid. Under both interpretations, the medium term impact on portfolio allocation depends upon the relative costs of debt and equity finance. Viewing enforcement as incentive based suggests there is relatively less need to match risk weightings accurately to portfolio risk

Transparency regulation aims at reducing financial fragility by strengthening market discipline. There are, however, two elementary properties of banking that may render such regulation inefficient at best and detrimental at worst. First, an extensive financial safety net may eliminate the disciplinary effect of transparency regulation. Second, achieving transparency is costly for banks, as it dilutes their charter values, and hence also reduces their private costs of risk-taking. We consider both the direct costs of complying with disclosure requirements and the indirect transparency costs stemming from imperfect property rights governing information and particularly infer the conditions under which transparency regulation cannot reduce financial fragility

Defects in the corporate governance of government-owned enterprises tempt opportunistic officials to breach duties of public stewardship. Corporate-governance theory suggests that incentive-based deferred compensation could intensify the force that common-law duties actually exert on regulatory managers. In principle, a forfeitable fund of deferred compensation could be combined with provisions for measuring, verifying, and rewarding multiperiod performance to make top regulators accountable for maximizing the long-run net social benefits their enterprise produces. Because government deposit-insurance enterprises are purveyors of credit enhancements for which private substitute and reinsurance markets exist, their performance could be measured accurately enough to make employment contracts for deposit-insurance CEOs a promising place to experiment with this kind of accountability reform