The Economics of Harmonisation: Implications for Reform of Commercial Law and Regulation in New Zealand
This paper provides an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of harmonising New Zealand's commercial laws and regulations with those in Australia or with an OECD norm. It argues that unless the definition of harmonisation is limited to mutual recognition the economics literature surveyed does not support a general presumption in favour of harmonisation of commercial laws.The absence of any presumption in favour of harmonisation is based on the infeasibility of full harmonisation while New Zealand maintains political independence and on the overall requirement for an assessment of the efficiency of any law in the context of the New Zealand economy
Regulatory co-opetition
Regulatory reformers in the United States call for decentralization in the name of 'federalism'. In Europe, a similar sentiment advances under the banner of 'subsidiarity'. One of the underlying and critical theoretical premises of these two movements is the suggestion that 'regulatory competition' among horizontally arrayed governments will generate pressures for improved governmental efficiency in the regulatory realm. Critics have suggested that rather than welfare-enhancing competitive pressures, divergent regulatory standards may instead trigger a welfare-reducing 'race toward the bottom'. In this article we argue that both race-toward-the-bottom and regulatory competition theories are overstated from a descriptive point of view and unsatisfactory from a normative perspective. Regulatory theory must reflect the diversity and complexity of the world. Optimal governance thus requires a flexible mix of competition and cooperation between government actors as well as between governmental and non-governmental actors, along both horizontal and vertical dimensions. This enriched model of 'regulatory co-opetition' recognizes that sometimes regulatory competition will prove to be advantageous but in other cases some form of collaboration will produce superior results. In a world that is pluralistic, not simplistic, a combination of regulatory competition and cooperation will almost always be optimal.
The prospect of flooding and the motivation to prepare in contrasting urban communities : a qualitative exploration of Protection Motivation Theory
.............................................................................................................. i! Acknowledgements ........................................................................................... ii! Publications, Reports & Presentations ........................................................... v! Table of