Economics

Regulators meant to police an industry often end up working for it

In 1971, economist George Stigler argued that regulatory agencies, over time, tend to be 'captured' by the very industries they're supposed to oversee, since a concentrated industry has far more incentive and resources to influence a regulator than diffuse consumers do. Stigler's theory of regulatory capture reframed regulation as something industries often lobby for, not just resist. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1982, partly for this work.

George Stigler, The Theory of Economic Regulation — Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 1971

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