The Legislative Design of Regulatory Structure
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6230087 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mathew D Mccubbins (0000-0003-0606-2109, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1985 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 721 |
| Publication date | 1985-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2111178 |
| OpenAlex | W2049910379 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 143 |
| References cited | 18 |
Studies of Congress and the design of regulation have focused largely upon the origins of regulation and upon the motivations underlying the congressional delegation of legislative authority to administrative agencies. In studying the delegation of legislative authority, however, little attention has been paid to how Congress exercises control over the subsequent bureaucratic selection of regulatory policy. This paper focuses on the how by developing a simple theoretical model of the design of institutional arrangements through which Congress attempts to control bureaucratic policymaking. Specifically, this paper examines the congressional choice of the substantive discretionary authority delegated to an administrative entity. This substantive discretionary authority is constructed through the choice of two structural design options: the regulatory scope of the administrative entity and the procedural requirements imposed on administrative decision making. Propositions concerning the influence of decision uncertainty and conflict of interest on the choice of these agency structural arrangements will be derived
Agency (philosophy · Bureaucracy · Business · Control (management · Delegated authority · Delegation · Economics · Law and economics · Legislature · Management · Political science · Politics · Scope (computer science · Sociology · Traditional authority · Computer Science · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration · Regulation and Compliance Studies
Reexamining the Use of Unilateral Orders
Administrative Innovations as Instruments of State Legislative Control
Political Control and the Power of the Agent
Expertise, Subversion, and Bureaucratic Discretion
The Handbook of Organizational Economics
The Politics of Quasi-Government
Setting the Agenda
Who Controls the Bureaucracy?
Choosing Strategies to Control the Bureaucracy
Institutions and Their Design
Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy
New Television, Old Politics
Bureaucratic control after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo
Judges' Attitudes toward the Public Accounting Profession
The power of expertise? Politician–bureaucrat interactions, national budget transparency and the Israeli health care policy
Instrument choice, political reform and economic welfare
The Headless Fourth Branch
Regulatory Policymaking in the American States
Data Science and Political Economy
Regulatory Process, Regulatory Reform, and the Quality of Regulatory Impact Analysis
Slowing at Sunset
The Bureaucracy as a Battleground
An Analysis of Case Processing Complexity in Public Bureaus
Political Insulation and Legislative Interventions
State Legislative Influence over Agency Rulemaking
The new political economy of regulation
Managing the Political Life Cycle of Regulation in the UK and German Telecommunication Sectors
Bureaucratic Performance and Control in British Politics
Congressional Acquiescence to Presidentialism in the US ‘War on Terror’
Working-Class Legislators, Bill Writing, and Introduction
Equality and Responsive Institutions
Theory and Inference in the Study of Bureaucracy
Are the reluctant warriors out of control? Why the U.S. military is averse to responding to post‐cold war low‐level threats
Feeding the Coalition
Interests, Institutions, and Positive Theory
Congressional Use of Authorization and Oversight
The Politicization Conversation
The Revolution in Presidential Studies
Back to the Future? Toward Revitalizing the Study of the Administrative Presidency
Blue Ribbons, Black Boxes
Are Democracies the Better Allies? The Impact of Regime Type on Military Coalition Operations
Citizen groups and scientific decisionmaking
Ownership, empowerment, and productivity
Goal Ambiguity, Work Complexity, and Work Routineness in Federal Agencies
September 11 and the Adaptation Failure of U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Assessing the Assumptions
Agency Input as a Policy-Making Tool
Shaping Formal Networks through the Regulatory Process
Interest Group Influence on Rule Making
The Effect of Political Disagreement on Discretion
The political economy of environmental regulation
Presidential priorities, congressional control, and the quality of regulatory analysis
Agent discretion, regulatory policymaking, and different institutional arrangements
The congressional foundations of agency performance
Political authority, expertise and government bureaucracies
Political and Economic Influences On Private-Sector Pollution Control Costs
Higher Education and Congressional Influence on Administrative Decisions
Promoting Participation? An Examination of Rulemaking Notification and Access Procedures
Nonprofits as Local Government Service Contractors
The composition of policy change
Bureaucratic Resistance and Policy Inefficiency
Pills, Policy Making and Perceptions
Regulatory strategies, delegation and European market integration
Member states and the European Commission
In the Shadow of the Vote? Decision Making in the European Community
Statutory discretion and procedural control of the European commission's executive functions
Institutional Change in Europe
Business-Regulatory Relations
The Third Force? Independent Regulatory Agencies and Elected Politicians in Europe
Insider and Outsider Lobbying of the European Commission
Joint bodies in the European Union's international agreements
A Political Explanation of Variations in Central Bank Independence
Institutional Design versus Reputational Effects on Bureaucratic Performance
Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service
The Pursuit of Political Control by Multiple Principals
Political Transaction Costs and the Politics of Administrative Design
Policing the Administrative State
The Constraining Power of the Purse
When Does Government Limit the Impact of Voter Initiatives? The Politics of Implementation and Enforcement
Power in Text
What Happens After the Alarm? Interest Group Subsidies to Legislative Overseers
Electoral Politics as a Redistributive Game
The Contractual Architecture of Public Policy
Designing Bureaucratic Responsiveness
Oversight Capabilities in the States
Divided government and US federal rulemaking
Regulatory Analysis Procedures and Political Influence on Bureaucratic Policymaking
Live Bureaucrats and Dead Public Servants
Ministerial Leadership and Endorsement of Bureaucrats
Steering Agencies with Short‐Term Authorizations
When do bureaucrats respond to external demands? A theoretical framework and empirical test of bureaucratic responsiveness
Who’s Whispering in Your Ear? The Influence of Third Parties Over State Agency Decisions
Multiple Principals, Multiple Signals
Information Processing and Policy Dynamics
The Politics of the Telecommunications Policy Process
Reinventing Regulatory Development at the Environmental Protection Agency
Who is in charge here? Legislators, bureaucrats and the policy making process
Overseeing Oversight
An Assessment of the Positive Theory of 'Congressional Dominance
Asymmetric Information, Delegation, and the Structure of Policy-Making
Moral Hazard and Observability
Bureaucrats and Politicians
General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models
Theory of the firm
No minimally reasonable collective-choice process can be strategy-proof
Bureaucratic compliance as a game on the unit square
A model of regulatory agency behavior
On the incentives of regulators
The universal-instability theorem
The Economic Theory of Regulation and Public Financing of Presidential Elections
Bureaucratic Discretion or Congressional Control? Regulatory Policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission
Promise and Performance. Choosing and Implementing an Environmental Policy
Majority Rule Models and Legislative Elections
A Social Choice Perspective on Expertise and Authority in Bureaucracy
A Rational Choice Perspective on Congressional Norms
The New Economics of Organization
Political Solutions to Market Problems
| Unique citing works | 143 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,58 |
| Citation span | 1986 - 2026 (41) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 141 |