NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

The Political Economy of Controls: Complexity

Anne O. Krueger, Roderick Duncan

NBER Working Paper No. 4351*
Issued in April 1993
NBER Program(s):   IFM    ITI

Increasing complexity of regulation over time is a regular empirical phenomenon whenever political processes attempt to control economic activity. In this paper it is argued that a tendency toward increasing complexity of controls is probably inherent in most efforts to regulate, and that the great likelihood that it will occur should be taken into account in initial policy formulation. Economic policy analyses may be correct as formulated on the assumption that the initial policies will be adopted and not be altered, but be wrong if it is recognized that increased complexity may be an inevitable cost of the policy.

*Published: in Lange Stetting, Knad Erik Svendsen and Ebbi Yndgaard, Global Change and Transformation, Handelshoyskolens Forlag, Copenhagen p. 193-210

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Information about Free Papers

You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, a site with your domain name in ".GOV", or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access.

E-mail:

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org