D’Alberti, Marco --- "Administrative Law and the Public Regulation of Markets in a Global Age" [2010] ELECD 806; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446359

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Administrative Law and the Public Regulation of Markets in a Global Age

Author(s): D’Alberti, Marco

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

4 Administrative law and the public regulation of
markets in a global age
Marco D'Alberti


The role of public authority in the regulation of the economy has evolved over time.
During the twentieth century, the intervention of the State and public administration
into economic affairs steadily increased, at least until the 1970s, despite the strong, free-
market critiques directed at this approach. However, since the 1980s, the process of
globalization (due to the enhanced development of world trade and international com-
munications), along with privatization, liberalization, and deregulation, have modified
the scope and method of public intervention. More recently, the global economic and
financial crisis that began in 2008 raises the potential of bringing about new forms of
(sometimes intense) regulation and administrative interventions. In short, the pendulum
may be swinging back, with the evolution of market regulation, as well as its impact on
administrative law, continuing apace.
This chapter first tries to assess the principal trends in public regulation of markets
since the outset of the twentieth century, emphasizing continuity despite the many
changes that have taken place. The chapter then attempts to identify, in legal terms, the
essential features of public regulation today, as well as their prospects beyond the present
economic crisis. Finally, this contribution then considers the impact of changing forms
of public regulation of markets on the substance and procedures of administrative law.

1. Public regulation of markets over the course of the twentieth century
At the end of the nineteenth century the structure ...