Really responsive risk-based regulation

Regulators in a number of countries are increasingly developing "risk-based" strategies to manage their resources, and their reputations as "risk-based regulators" have become much lauded by regulatory reformers. This widespread endorsement of risk-based regulation, together with the experience of regulatory failure, prompts us to consider how risk-based regulators can attune the logics of risk analyses to the complex problems and the dynamics of regulation in practice. We argue, first, that regulators have to regulate in a way that is responsive to five elements: (1) regulated firms' behavior, attitude, and culture; (2) regulation's institutional environments; (3) interactions of regulatory controls; (4) regulatory performance; and (5) change. Secondly, we argue that the challenges of regulation to which regulators have to respond vary across the different regulatory tasks of detection, response development, enforcement, assessment, and modification. Using the "really responsive" framework, we highlight some of the strengths and limitations of using risk-based regulation to manage risk and uncertainty within the constraints that flow from practical circumstances and, indeed, from the framework of risk-based regulation itself. The need for a revised, more nuanced conception of risk-based regulation is stressed

Managerial Hubris, Trade-Associations, and Regulatory Knowledge in Micro-Firms

To avoid breaking the law for regulatory non-compliance, it is essential that micro-firm owner-managers are aware of deficiencies in their knowledge, so that they can seek improvement and avoid over-confidence (i.e. hubris) in their knowledge levels. Using newly collected survey data from micro-firms in the English accommodation sector and multivariate techniques, the authors explore the possibility of hubris by making a novel distinction between the Perceived-Knowledge and Actual-Knowledge of regulation held by micro-firm owner-managers. Both Perceived-Knowledge (from self-assessment) and Actual-Knowledge (from a simple test) over four core areas of regulation are found to be different, generally poor and suggestive of hubris. The relationship between these knowledge levels is further explored by considering the role of trade association membership (since they support members) and attitude (since it effects learning). Attitude is found to be positively associated with both forms of knowledge, while trade association memberships are also found to be associated with enhanced Perceived-Knowledge, but not Actual-Knowledge. In light of the results, the authors suggest several priority areas for improving Actual-Knowledge and self-assessment skills, and areas for future research.</p

What's law got to do with it Part 2: Legal strategies for healthier nutrition and obesity prevention

This article is the second in a two-part review of law's possible role in a regulatory approach to healthier nutrition and obesity prevention in Australia. As discussed in Part 1, law can intervene in support of obesity prevention at a variety of levels: by engaging with the health care system, by targeting individual behaviours, and by seeking to influence the broader, socio-economic and environmental factors that influence patterns of behaviour across the population. Part 1 argued that the most important opportunities for law lie in seeking to enhance the effectiveness of a population health approach