Are economists Kings? Economic evidence and discretionary assessments at the UK utility regulatory agencies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Despoina Mantzari
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Electricity Markets ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Economic Regulation ◽  
Economic Evidence ◽  
Regulatory Decision ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Impact

Abstract UK sectoral regulatory authorities are hybrid communities of, among others, lawyers and economists. Since the liberalization of essential services, expert economists enjoy broad discretionary powers in advancing the agencies’ broad statutory objectives. Yet, despite the significant societal impact of economic regulation, existing scholarship in the fields of competition law and regulation and public law has, with very few exceptions, disregarded these actors and the very essence of their work. This article aims to address this gap in the literature by blending theoretical with empirical insights deriving from 14 semi-structured elite interviews with regulatory economists in the regulatory agencies for energy (Office for Gas and Electricity Markets), telecoms (Office for Communications), and water (Office of Water Services). It explores the increased reliance on economics in the regulatory decision-making process and the impact this has had on the authorities’ decision-making and discretion, when making complex trade-offs between the various goals of the regulatory enterprise. In doing so, it puts forward a theoretical framework inspired by Craig Parsons’ typology of political action so as to identify and examine the nature and scope of the constraints that inform and shape the influence of economics in the exercise of regulatory discretion. This endeavour is significant in the sense that it is the first of its kind and, in that it provides a normative framework of analysis that can be applied in other areas of regulation heavily infused with and influenced by economic evidence and analysis, such as ‘pure’ competition law enforcement by both sectoral and competition authorities.

scholarly journals Dissociating the Impact of Movement Time and Energy Costs on Decision-Making and Action Initiation in Humans

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Saleri Lunazzi ◽  
Amélie J. Reynaud ◽  
David Thura
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Energy Expenditure ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Movement Initiation ◽  
Time Condition ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Action Initiation

Recent theories and data suggest that adapted behavior involves economic computations during which multiple trade-offs between reward value, accuracy requirement, energy expenditure, and elapsing time are solved so as to obtain rewards as soon as possible while spending the least possible amount of energy. However, the relative impact of movement energy and duration costs on perceptual decision-making and movement initiation is poorly understood. Here, we tested 31 healthy subjects on a perceptual decision-making task in which they executed reaching movements to report probabilistic choices. In distinct blocks of trials, the reaching duration (“Time” condition) and energy (“Effort” condition) costs were independently varied compared to a “Reference” block, while decision difficulty was maintained similar at the block level. Participants also performed a simple delayed-reaching (DR) task aimed at estimating movement initiation duration in each motor condition. Results in that DR task show that long duration movements extended reaction times (RTs) in most subjects, whereas energy-consuming movements led to mixed effects on RTs. In the decision task, about half of the subjects decreased their decision durations (DDs) in the Time condition, while the impact of energy on DDs were again mixed across subjects. Decision accuracy was overall similar across motor conditions. These results indicate that movement duration and, to a lesser extent, energy expenditure, idiosyncratically affect perceptual decision-making and action initiation. We propose that subjects who shortened their choices in the time-consuming condition of the decision task did so to limit a drop of reward rate.

scholarly journals The Impact of Economics on Competition Law in New Zealand Some Reflections on the First Decade

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Mark N Berry
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Brief Assessment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The economic focus of the Commerce Act 1986 is unique in New Zealand, both in terms of its theoretical foundations and its institutional framework. The author reflects on these features of the Act and the impact that economics has had on the decision-making process. This article reviews the New Zealand landscape in terms of the goals of the Commerce Act, its institutional framework, and the manner in which the strict rules of evidence may be relaxed. It then considers, by using Justice Breyer's framework (in S J Breyer "Economics and Judging: An Afterword on Cooter and Wald" (1987) 50 Law and Contemp Probs 245), how economics has impacted upon the content of rules of law and the proof of specific economic facts. The author concludes with a brief assessment of likely and desirable future trends in New Zealand law, arguing that it was likely that economics would continue to have a major impact on the Commerce Act; aside from in the interpretation of dominance principles, the author argues that the foundations are strongly in place for the continued growth of law and economics in this field.

scholarly journals Facilitating informed land-use decisions through the modelling of ecosystem service trade-offs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicola Scott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Diffusion Theory ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Land Utilization ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Land Use Decisions ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Impact

<p>Increasing global populations are placing increasing pressure on our natural systems, reducing their capacity to produce the ecosystem services that we rely upon for human wellbeing (World Bank, 2004).   Clarifying the implications of land-use decisions across the range of ecosystem services is fundamental to understanding the trade-offs inherent in land-use options. LUCI (the Land Utilization and Capability Indicator) is an emergent Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based framework developed to enable the mapping of several ecosystem services in a spatially explicit manner. This process enables a clearer understanding of the inter-dependencies between ecosystems and potential implications and trade-offs of management interventions across a range of services.   There is however, limited understanding of the impact, utility and credibility of such tools for land-use decision-makers, or of how they perceive the information conveyed. This Thesis considered the impact that presenting information on land-use trade-offs through LUCI had on land-owners at the farm scale.   This research supports previous findings that information alone does not drive behaviour (or decision-making) (Kollmuss, 2002, Fisk, 2011; Kennedy, 2010; Mackenzie-Mohr, 2000; Stern, 2000). Similarly, perceived credibility was not the main driver of decision-making nor is it necessarily rationally based. However without it, voluntary adoption of a new technology or tool is unlikely. Therefore, in seeking to diffuse tools, such as LUCI within a community, process design should take into account the social structures and the characteristics of targeted individuals within that community. The influence of temporal and context specific factors on decision-making provides both barriers and opportunities for technology diffusion.  The research findings propose that when integrating new tools and technologies within communities, consideration is given to using a suite of tools, mechanisms and theories in concert such as Community-Based Social Marketing (Mackenzie-Mohr, 2011) and Diffusion Theory (Rogers, 2003) to facilitate improved diffusion and uptake by communities.</p>

scholarly journals Self-selection and socialisation effects of business and legal studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (8) ◽  
pp. 1127-1145
Author(s):  
Tim Rosengart ◽  
Bernhard Hirsch ◽  
Christian Nitzl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethics Education ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Fairness Concerns ◽  
The Impact

Abstract To explore the effect of business and legal studies on the resolution of trade-offs between efficiency considerations and fairness concerns, we distributed a survey with three decision cases to freshman and senior business and law students. Our results show that business students, in direct comparison with subjects who study law, make decisions more in accordance with economic theory. Studying business administration leads to decisions that are based more on efficiency criteria, while legal education appears to lead individuals making decisions that are more based on social criteria. Our findings reveal the impact of self-selection and socialization effects on decision making. For business ethics education, this result matters because moral decision making can be influenced during studies.

scholarly journals Health Canada & Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences - Use of Real World Data/Evidence to Inform Regulatory Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 1s-47s
Author(s):  
Real World Data Workshop Group CSPS/Health Canada
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Real World ◽  
Randomized Clinical Trials ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Real World Data ◽  
World Data ◽  
Regulatory Decision ◽  
Health Canada

Real world data (RWD) and real world evidence (RWE) are playing increasing roles in health-care decisions. Real world data are routinely employed to support reimbursement and coverage decisions for drugs and devices. More recently, clinical trials incorporating pragmatic designs and observational studies are considered to supplement traditional clinical trials (e.g., randomized clinical trials). Regulatory agencies and large co-operative groups including academia and industry are exploring whether leveraging big databases such as electronic medical records and claims databases can be used to garner clinical insights extending beyond those gained from randomized controlled studies. Whether RWE can ultimately replace or improve traditional clinical trials is the big question. The workshop held on December 3, 2019 at Health Canada included presenters from regulatory agencies, industry and academia. Health Canada, US FDA and European Medicine Agency presented current thinking, draft frameworks and guidance available in the public domain. While the three agencies might be at different stages of utilizing RWE for regulatory decision making, the consensus is not whether RWE would be used but when and how it can be incorporated into regulatory decision making while maintaining a high evidentiary bar. The complexity of data sourcing, curating databases, aligning on common data models, illustrated by high-profile work conducted as part of Sentinel, DSEN, OHDSI and Duke-Margolis initiatives, was presented and discussed during the workshop, creating great learning opportunities for the attendees. The design and analysis of RWE studies were compared and contrasted to those of RCTs. While there are gaps, they are closing quickly as novel analytical methods are employed and innovative ways of curating data, including natural language processing and artificial intelligence, are explored.   This proceeding contains summaries of information presented by the speakers, including current highlights about the use of RWE in regulatory decision making. In the world where the uptake of “big data” in everyday life is happening at unprecedented speed, we can expect RWE to be a fast-moving area and with the potential for big impact in health-care decision making in the years to come.

scholarly journals A Diffusion Model Approach for Understanding the Impact of 17 Interventions on the Race Implicit Association Test

2020 ◽  
pp. 014616722097448
Author(s):  
Jessica Röhner ◽  
Calvin K. Lai
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Association Test ◽  
Implicit Measure ◽  
Implicit Association ◽  
Implicit Measures ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Speed Accuracy

Performance on implicit measures reflects construct-specific and nonconstruct-specific processes. This creates an interpretive issue for understanding interventions to change implicit measures: Change in performance could reflect changes in the constructs of interest or changes in other mental processes. We reanalyzed data from six studies ( N = 23,342) to examine the process-level effects of 17 interventions and one sham intervention to change race implicit association test (IAT) performance. Diffusion models decompose overall IAT performance ( D-scores) into construct-specific (ease of decision-making) and nonconstruct-specific processes (speed–accuracy trade-offs, non-decision-related processes like motor execution). Interventions that effectively reduced D-scores changed ease of decision-making on compatible and incompatible trials. They also eliminated differences in speed–accuracy trade-offs between compatible and incompatible trials. Non-decision-related processes were affected by two interventions only. There was little evidence that interventions had any long-term effects. These findings highlight the value of diffusion modeling for understanding the mechanisms by which interventions affect implicit measure performance.

scholarly journals Assisting software architects in architectural decision-making using Quark

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ameller ◽  
Xavier Franch
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Software Architectures ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Usual Approach ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Architectural Decision ◽  
Architectural Knowledge ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) and constraints are among the principal drivers of architectural decision-making. NFRs are improved or damaged by architectural decisions (ADs), while constraints directly include or exclude parts of the architecture (e.g., logical components or technologies). We may determine the impact of an AD, or which parts of the architecture are affected by a constraint, but at the end it is hard to know if we are respecting the NFRs and the imposed constraints with all the ADs made. In the usual approach, architects use their own experience to produce software architectures that comply with the NFRs and imposed constraints, but at the end, especially for crucial decisions, the architect has to deal with complex trade-offs between NFRs and juggle with possible incompatibilities raised by the imposed constraints. In this paper we present Quark, a method to assist software architects in architectural decision-making, and the conceptualization of the relationship between NFRs and ADs defined in Arteon, an ontology to represent and manage architectural knowledge. Finally, we provide an overview of the Quark and Arteon implementation, the ArchiTech tool.

E-Rulemaking

2011 ◽  
pp. 713-717
Author(s):  
C. Coglianese
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Access ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Regulatory Decision ◽  
The World ◽  
Regulatory Proposals

Throughout the world, governments use regulation to combat monopoly power, protect consumers, and reduce health, safety, and environmental risks. Regulation promotes the safety of transportation, the cleanliness of the air, and the quality of their food and drugs. Today, nearly every major aspect of contemporary public life is significantly affected by rules made by regulatory agencies, ministries, or bureaus (Kerwin, 2003). Given the consequential and complex nature of regulatory decision-making, crafting rules presents government agencies with significant informational challenges. Government regulators must collect information to understand the causes of regulatory problems, identify available regulatory options, and predict the effects of each alternative (Coglianese, Zeckhauser, & Parson, 2004). To develop a new rule, regulators must often undertake extensive studies and analyses and respond to comments from industry groups and other interested organizations. E-rulemaking—or the use of information technology in government rulemaking—promises to help regulatory agencies make rules more efficiently and with better quality (Brandon & Carlitz, 2002; Johnson, 1998). E-rulemaking may also help expand public access to and participation in government decision making. Despite the significance of regulatory decisions, they have often been made in relative obscurity, with organized business lobbies sometimes having disproportionate influence over policymaking. Information technology may facilitate greater transparency and democratic accountability in the rulemaking process. Already, regulatory agencies are making use of information technology to create Websites containing notices of new regulatory proposals and various background documents. They have also begun to allow citizens to use the Internet to share comments on new regulatory policies or engage in online dialogues (Beierle, 2003; Brandon & Carlitz, 2002). In early 2003, for example, the United States government launched a new Web portal called Regulations.Gov that allows the public to locate and comment on all new regulatory proposals announced by hundreds of federal regulatory agencies (Skrzycki, 2003). In addition, American officials are currently at work developing a government-wide, online docket system that will make available all the extensive information contained in each agency’s rulemaking files (Skrzycki, 2004). Efforts such as these are likely to continue and can be expected in other regulatory jurisdictions around the world.

Considerations for the Use of Probabilistic Assessments in Regulatory Decision Making Related to Pressure Boundary Component Aging

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blair Carroll ◽  
John C. Jin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Boundary Component ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Informed Decision ◽  
Informed Decision Making ◽  
Regulatory Decision ◽  
Plant Safety ◽  
Unintended Effect ◽  
The Impact

Within the current Canadian regulatory framework, the structural integrity of pressure boundary components with detected service-induced degradation must be demonstrated using deterministic evaluation techniques. However, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission staff has recognized that the inherent conservatism in these deterministic assessment approaches may generate overly conservative conclusions when they are applied to assess the impact of postulated service-induced degradation to establish aging management requirements for nuclear power plant pressure boundary components. This may have the unintended effect of reducing the effectiveness of aging management programs by directing resources towards activities that will have minimal benefit on improving plant safety and could result in unnecessary dose to personnel. With this in mind, CNSC staff has accepted the limited use of probabilistic assessments prepared by licensees to support aging management activities for pressure boundary components. These probabilistic assessments form a part of risk-informed decision making strategies intended to reduce excess conservatism that could arise if decisions are based solely on the results of deterministic assessments. This paper provides an overview of CNSC staff’s experiences with the review and acceptance of licensee submissions incorporating probabilistic assessments of pressure boundary component aging for risk informed decision making.

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