Rossi on Regulatory Bargaining
Jim Rossi (Florida State University – College of Law) has posted Regulatory Bargaining and Public Law (Jim Rossi, REGULATORY BARGAINING AND PUBLIC LAW, Cambridge University Press, 2005) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
- In REGULATORY BARGAINING AND PUBLIC LAW (Cambridge University Press 2005; 274 pp.; ISBN 0521838924), Professor Rossi explores the implications of a bargaining perspective for institutional governance and public law in deregulated industries, such as electric power and telecommunications. Leading media accounts blame deregulated markets for failures in competitive restructuring policies, as with the California electricity deregulation fiasco. However, Professor Rossi argues that governmental institutions, often influenced by private stakeholders, share blame for the defects in deregulated markets.
Among the issues address in this book are consumer service obligations, constitutional takings jurisprudence, the filed rate doctrine, the dormant commerce clause, state action immunity from antitrust enforcement, and federalism disputes. Professor Rossi’s book warns against a ‘deference trap’ leading courts to passive roles in conflicts involving political institutions, such as regulatory agencies and states. To address such concerns, Professor Rossi’s book suggests a unified set of default rules to guide courts in the United States and elsewhere as they address the complex issues that will come before them in a deregulatory environment.
The first part of the book explores the minimal role that judicial intervention played for much of the twentieth century in public utility industries and how deregulation presents new opportunities and challenges for public law. The second part of the book explores the role of public law in a deregulatory environment, focusing on the positive and negative influences it creates for the behavior of private stakeholders and public institutions in a bargaining-focused political process.
You can also download The Scope of Regulatory Bargaining. I’m a big fan of Rossi’s work!