Institutional endowment as foundation for regulatory performance and regime transitions: the role of the US constitution in telecommunications regulation in the United States
Recent research demonstrates the importance of what Spiller and Levy (1994, 1996) call a nation's institutional endowment to the efficacy of regulatory policies. We examine various roles of the US Constitution as an enabler of regulatory governance institutions that shape policies towards telecommunications industries, and constrain efforts to change those policies. Constitutional clauses designed to serve important noneconomic societal goals do so by limiting the discretion and efficacy of government bodies. This limits the extent to which regulatory policies may be used to promote economic efficiency. However, these constitutional constraints may also promote long-term efficiency goals by making regulatory commitments more credible.
us constitution regulatory policy national institutional endowment utility infrastructure