Regulatory capture is a phenomenon in which a government regulatory agency becomes dominated by the interests of the industry that it oversees. In the United States, the most notorious historical examples are the Civil Aeronautics Board, which protected airlines from competition; the Interstate Commerce Commission, known as the "trucker's best friend," which restricted competition in transportation; and the Department of Agriculture, which implements policies that are alleged to favor the interests of large corporate farming concerns over those of consumers and family farmers. The term is central in a stream of research that is often referred to as the economics of regulation, which is critical of earlier conceptualizations of regulatory intervention by governments as being motivated to protect public goods. Two often cited articles are Laffont & Tirole (1991) and Levine & Forrence (1990).

See also

--References==

Laffont, J. J., & Tirole, J. 1991. The politics of government decision making. A theory of regulatory capture. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106(4): 1089-1127 Levine, M. E., & Forrence, J. L. 1990. Regulatory capture, public interest, and the public agenda. Toward a synthesis. Journal of Law Economics & Organization, 6: 167-198

Economics