Advanced Course on Economic Regulation

The study of regulation, which means “any attempts to control, order or influence the economic behaviour of market players” (Black, 2002) is gaining increasing momentum in recent years. From an economic perspective, it looks at the benefits and costs of different regulatory approaches and to what extend objectives have been achieved. From a legal perspective, it looks at the effect of existing norms and studies evidence-based recommendations how laws, in combination with other policy tools, should to be designed.

From the outset, it has been an interdisciplinary field of economics and law, while it increasingly takes recourse to other disciplines such as marketing, psychology, and sociology.

In the bioeconomy the field of regulation has gained momentum since phenomena such as climate change, food scarcity, technical (e.g. new plant breeding technology, synthetic biology), and global trade initiates new challenges for regulative measures.

Students will study in-depth economic and legal origins of regulations, the applications of liability law, major regulatory approaches used at national (civil and common law countries) and international level (EU, WTO, Bio-Safety). They will also be familiarized with the tools used in the field.

Pertinent questions addressed include:

• the effect of regulation on investment and international trade from a spatial and temporal perspective
• the effectiveness of liability rules to govern externalities

Former occurrences of this course

12 May – 23 June 2022   |   11 May – 22 June 2021   |   14 May – 18 June 2019   |   28 May – 1 June 2018   |   6-27 June 2017