Comments on Levine and Forrence, "Regulatory Capture, Public Interest, and the Public Agenda: Toward a Synthesis"

Abstract

Michael Levine and Jennifer Forrence show quite well that neither the capture nor interest view of regulation is adequate. Their critique of the literature is useful and provides a sound basis for launching their ambitious inquiry. Their call for a synthesis is a welcome one-one in which, I might add, Roger Noll has joined, most recently in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Noll:48-58). As Levine and Forrence seek to account for regulatory outcomes, they challenge us to think about why we have some outcomes and not others. We would all agree, I think, with the authors that we need to better explain when regulators are captured or act in the general interest. If we are to understand regulatory outcomes, we must explore in greater depth some of the subjects that Levine and Forrence raise in the latter part of their paper-namely, agenda-setting, slack, political dominance, and testability of hypotheses. I will consider each in turn. To account for regulatory outcomes, as this article seeks to do, I believe it is important to understand how issues become part of the public agenda. If, as Levine and Forrence argue, whether a regulatory outcome is captured or Burkean depends on whether the issue is on the public agenda, then we must attempt to understand how various actors seek to manipulate the pub-