Preventing Capture: Special Interest Influence in Regulation, and How to Limit It

DOWNLOAD INTRODUCTION

Edited by Daniel Carpenter (Harvard University) and David Moss (Harvard Business School)

To receive a notification when the book is published, email us.

“We aspire to improve our understanding of capture, making it more rigorous, more thorough, and more practically useful to those who want to prevent capture. Capture is real and a genuine threat to regulation, we recognize, but regulation to protect and advance the public interest is both possible and necessary.”

- "Introduction" to Preventing Capture: Special Interest Influence in Regulation, and How to Limit It 

Summary

Recent crises in (de)regulated industries – most notably, the financial system’s collapse, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the 2006 West Virginia mine disaster – have made it clear that regulation is both necessary and, in many cases, in need of significant improvement. The Tobin Project is working on an edited volume, Preventing Capture: Special Interest Influence in Regulation, and How to Limit It, that employs a broad set of methodological tools and rigorous evidentiary standards to identify regulatory successes and failures in recent American experience, as well as the conditions that foster success rather than failure. The purpose of the work is not only to clarify capture theory and its limits, but also to provide a positive contribution to the understanding of regulation and how best to safeguard it from undue influence. The project aims to offer cutting-edge analysis of capture, its limits, and possibilities for preventing undue (and deleterious) influence in regulatory settings. 

Working Drafts of Chapters:

Introduction PDF
Daniel Carpenter, Freed Professor of Government, Harvard University
David Moss, John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

SECTION I: FAILURES OF CAPTURE SCHOLARSHIP

1. A Revisionist History of Regulatory Capture Theory PDF
William Novak, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School 

2. Detecting and Measuring Capture PDF
Daniel Carpenter, Freed Professsor of Government, Harvard University

3. The Concept of Reglatory Capture: A Short, Inglorious History
Richard Posner, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit; Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Chicago Law School 

SECTION II: NEW CONCEPTIONS OF CAPTURE: MECHANISMS AND OUTCOMES

4. Cultural Capture and the Financial Crisis PDF
James Kwak, Associate Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law

5. Preventing Economists' Capture
Luigi Zingales, Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance and David G. Booth Faculty Fellow, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

6. Corrosive Capture? The Dueling Forces of Autonomy and Industry Influence in FDA Pharmaceutical Regulation PDF
Daniel Carpenter, Freed Professor of Government, Harvard University

7. Complexity, Capacity, and Capture PDF
Nolan McCarty, Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

SECTION III: MISDIAGNOSING CAPTURE AND CASE STUDIES OF REGULATORY SUCCESS

8. Capturing History: The Case of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927 PDF
David Moss, John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Jonathan Lackow, Associate, Ropes & Gray LLP

9. Accidents and Enforcement at the Mine Safety and Health Administration PDF
Sanford Gordon, Associate Professor of Politics, New York University
Catherine Hafer, Associate Professor of Politics, New York University

10. Minerals Management Service and Deepwater Horizon PDF
Christopher Carrigan, Fellow, University of Pennsylvania Law School Program on Regulation

11. Reconsidering Agency Capture During Regulatory Policymaking PDF
Susan Webb Yackee, Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science, La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison

12. Coalitions, Autonomy, and Regulatory Bargains in Public Health Law PDF
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Professor of Law and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School

SECTION IV: THE POSSIBILITY OF PREVENTING CAPTURE

13. Preventing Capture Through Consumer Empowerment Programs: Some Evidence from Insurance Regulation PDF
Daniel Schwarcz, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School

14. Courts and Regulatory Capture PDF
M. Elizabeth Magill, Vice Dean, Joseph Weintraub-Bank of America Distinguished Professor of Law, Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Professor, University of Virginia Law School

15. Can Executive Review Help Prevent Capture?
Richard Revesz, Dean and Lawrence King Professor of Law, New York University Law School
Michael Livermore, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Integrity and Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University

Conclusion PDF
David Moss, John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Daniel Carpenter, Freed Professor of Government, Harvard University