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Agency Discretion and Accountability in Regulation

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Abstract

Agency discretion in the regulatory process is as unavoidable as it is in the standard employee-employer or agency situations. A basic difference from the standard agency relationship is that regulatory agency heads face more than a single principal (Spiller 1990). Although most Chief Executive Officers in publicly held corporations also have multiple principals (the shareholders), usually these are interested in maximizing the market value of the company, and hence we can describe them as having common, or at least not fully contradictory interests. In the case of regulatory agencies, however, that is not the case.

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© 2002 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Spiller, P.T. (2002). Agency Discretion and Accountability in Regulation. In: Newman, P. (eds) The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-74173-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-74173-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-99756-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-74173-1

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