Achieving Regulatory Excellence

Whether striving to protect citizens from financial risks, climate change, inadequate health care, or the uncertainties of the emerging sharing economy, regulators must routinely make difficult judgment calls in an effort to meet the conflicting demands that society places on them. What defines success for a regulator?

Operating within a political climate of competing demands, regulators need a lodestar to help them define and evaluate success.Understanding and Achieving Regulatory Excellence provides that direction by offering new insights from law, public administration, political science, sociology, and policy sciences on what regulators need to improve their performance.

It provides guidance about how regulators can set appropriate priorities and make sound, evidence-based decisions through processes that are transparent and participatory. With increasing demands for smarter but leaner government, the need for sound regulatory capacity for regulatory excellence has never been stronger.

Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently serves as the director of the Penn Program on Regulation and has served as the law school’s deputy dean for academic affairs. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes, with an emphasis on the empirical evaluation of alternative regulatory strategies and the role of public participation, negotiation, and business–government relations in policymaking. His most recent books include: Does Regulation Kill Jobs?; Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation; Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy; and Regulation and Regulatory Processes.