The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and commercial banking. However, recent concerns about market power in restructured electricity markets, airline industry instability amid chronic financial stress, and the challenges created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which allowed commercial banks to participate in investment banking, have led to calls for renewed market intervention. Economic Regulation and Its Reform collects research by a group of distinguished scholars who explore these and other issues surrounding government economic intervention. Determining the consequences of such intervention requires a careful assessment of the costs and benefits of imperfect regulation. Moreover, government interventions may take a variety of forms, from relatively nonintrusive performance-based regulations to more aggressive antitrust and competition policies and barriers to entry. This volume introduces the key issues surrounding economic regulation, provides an assessment of the economic effects of regulatory reforms over the past three decades, and examines how these insights bear on some of today’s most significant concerns in regulatory policy.

Long hours, low wages, and unsafe workplaces characterized sweatshops a hundred years ago. These same conditions plague American trucking today. Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation exposes the dark side of government deregulation in America's interstate trucking industry. In the years since deregulation in 1980, median earnings have dropped 30% and most long-haul truckers earn less than half of pre-regulation wages. Work weeks average more than sixty hours. Today, America's long-haul truckers are working harder and earning less than at any time during the last four decades. Written by a former long-haul trucker who now teaches industrial relations at Wayne State University, Sweatshops on Wheels raises crucial questions about the legacy of trucking deregulation in America and casts provocative new light on the issue of government deregulation in general.

The author discusses the question of federal preemption of intrastate transportation and the experience of intrastate deregulation in some states. He examines the issue of whether more deregulation is in the public interest and, if economic deregulation is to be retained, what form it should take. The author's summary and conclusions can be the basis for study of the effects of economic deregulation in the transportation industry. This book can be a resource for executives dealing with deregulation in such industries as: transportation, telecommunications, broadcasting, electric utilities, cable television, oil and gas, and securities and banking. Defense Transportation Journal This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the social nd economic consequences of one of America's most important infrastructure industries--transportation. Dr. Dempsey traces the legal and political movement from regulation to deregulation. He proceeds to review the empirical results of a decade of deregulation upon airlines, railroads, trucking, and bus companies, and the effects of deregulation upon the shipping and traveling public that rely upon them. The book begins with an analysis of the events that led our nation to establish a regime of economic regulation upon the transportation industry. It also examines the metamorphosis toward deregulation and focuses on several areas in which there has been a significant adverse impact, including economic efficiency, pricing, service, and safety. Dempsey's book addresses the question of federal preemption of intrastate transportation and the experience of intrastate deregulation in some states. Dempsey further examines the issue of whether more deregulation is in the public interest and, if economic regulation is to be retained, what form it should take. The book concludes with an analysis of the public interest in transportation, focusing upon the policy objectives essential in accomplishing social and economic goals beyond allocative efficiency. This book is a necessary resource for executives dealing with deregulation in such industries as: transportation, telecommunications, broadcasting, electric utilities, cable television, oil and gas, and securities and banking.

In 1980 Congress voted to eliminate the federal system of protective regulation over the powerful trucking industry, despite fierce opposition. This upset marked a rare example in American politics of diffuse public interests winning out over powerful economic lobbies. In Braking the Special Interests Dorothy Robyn draws upon firsthand observations of formal proceedings and behind-the-scenes maneuverings to illuminate the role of political strategy in the landmark trucking battle. Robyn focuses her analysis on four elements of strategy responsible for the deregulator's victory—elements that are essential, she argues, to any successful policy battle against entrenched special interests: the effective use of economic data and analysis to make a strong case for the merits of reform; the formation and management of a diverse lobbying coalition of firms and interest groups; presidential bargaining to gain political leverage; and transition schemes to reduce uncertainty and cushion the blow to losers. Drawing on political and economic theory, Braking the Special Interests is an immensely rich and readable study of political strategy and skill, with general insights relevant to current political battles surrounding trade, agriculture, and tax policies. Robyn's interdisciplinary work will be of great value to scholars and practitioners of politics, economics, and public policy.