Comments on: Find the missing sentiment quiz

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:06:48 +0000

Yes Chris I agree – was trying to keep the expression simple.

By: Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:50:36 +0000

Isn’t the objective to maximise benefits minus costs? This requires neither maximising benefits nor minimising costs. Fred’s fourth point got it dead right it seems to me. Look at the effect of a marginal reduction (or increase) in both benefits and costs, specifically the difference.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:16:29 +0000

What struck me was the imbalance between costs and benefits. Both points were expressed as constraints on regulation – the regulation must “relate directly to the achievement of the public benefit objectives” and it must involve minimum restrictions and minimum cost.

Yet there are two sides to the ledger – the benefits of the regulation and its costs. We should certainly minimise its costs, but shouldn’t we maximise its benefits?

This might seem like a semantic point. Perhaps it is. But the economists policing regulation have not shown themselves very keen on optimising regulatory design other than by maximising its flexibility and minimising its costs.

Now there’s nothing wrong with doing those things, but they’re not the whole story – by any means. I’ve argued for instance that when it comes to regulating for an informed marketplace there are lots of active and not particularly heavy handed things we can do to impprove information flows, but they don’t jump to the top of mind when one is simply trying to constrain the cost of any regulation you look at.

More generally – again using information as an example – Hayek and more recently a bunch of economists in the ‘modernist’ tradition (in which I’d include Arrow and Stigliz) have done work pointing to the importance of information in markets and highlighting various market failures. So have their followers. Hayek used his analysis to argue against ‘statism’ whilst Arrow and Stiglitz argued that an attention to information and information asymmetries showed how existing policies like investment and consumer disclosure regulation, professional regulation and various aspects of the insurance markets (no claim bonuses and excesses for instance) could ‘make sense’ in theory.

Yet none of this has led to much thinking about how to optimise regulation which involves not just the minimisation of costs but the maximisation of benefits.

By: pablo

pablo — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 03:55:59 +0000

I see a ‘grab all’ bit of gobbledeegook in the second objective designed to effectively nobble the the NCC’s ‘regulation of professions’ – the whole being worthy of a ‘Yes Minister’ plot.
To start with the objective states that restrictions on competition will continue but they will be pursued at minimum cost to the public.
Then there is the ‘other matters’ that the professions may be indulging in. Let’s be forensic and suggest that they may also be ‘restrictions’ of some sort which all the NCC are suggesting is that their costs be similarly ‘minimal’. So it is business as usual for the Council (and the professions) and the key word for any cynic like me is the ‘challenge’ that the Council suggest they face. Replace it with ‘problem’ and the whole goes into the ‘too hard’ basket.

By: Ken Parish

Ken Parish — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:22:29 +0000

What’s missing* is an explicit commitment to regulations which ensure that the public is as far as possible in a position to assess and make choices about the abilities, performance, reputation and ethics of members of all professions (and indeed tradespeople providing services). I guess that is conceptually a subset of economic efficiency, but I think it needs to be made explicit in its own right.

* I should qualify that I didn’t have time to read the paper, and I’m sure it had some things to say about ethics etc (it would be very surprising if it didn’t), but I’d be

By: Fred Argy

Fred Argy — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:01:35 +0000

In my recent AI paper I argued that four questions need to be asked before deciding on the merits of a regulation. They are

- how effective is it in acheiving its own policy goals?

- does the regulation have adverse by-product effects on economic efficiency?

- are there alternative, equally effective, ways of achieving the desired goals more efficiently (e.g. through the budget)?

- if alternatives are not available, what are the relative costs and benefits of lowering or removing the regulation?

By: Damien Eldridge

Damien Eldridge — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:26:26 +0000

Nick,

A further addition that should probably be added is something like: “To ensure that the benefits of the regulation outweigh its costs”.

Regards,

Damien.

By: Damien Eldridge

Damien Eldridge — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:10:02 +0000

Nick,

Maybe they should have included: “To ensure that the regulation has actually been achieving its objectives”. This is potentially somewhat different from the first dot point. Furthermore, the second dot point is only relevant if the regulations actually achieve their objectives!!!

Regards,

Damien.