Technology-based Regulation Research Articles

The role of private and public regulation in the case study of crypto-assets: The Italian move towards participatory regulation

With the Digital Financial package (MiCA, DLT Pilot, and DORA, later on complemented by the DAC8 proposal) the European Union seeks to establish an appropriate legal framework for crypto-assets showing a financial nature. The package represents a first attempt to regulate a complex and emerging phenomenon, characterised by significant trade-offs. Unsurprisingly, in this early stage of the law-making process several relevant aspects of the crypto environment remain unaddressed, such as pure DeFI models, DAOs, and NFTs. Such regulatory gap is to a large extent attributable to the difficulty of addressing technologically complex issues through command-and-control top-down legislation. The improvements delivered by the Better Regulation Agenda are not enough to solve this conundrum. In this context, the Communication by the Bank of Italy on Decentralised Technology in Finance and Crypto-assets and its first move, the smart-contract MoU, provide an interesting case study to discuss the potential of ‘participatory regulation.’ This experimental form of regulation tries to get the most out of co-regulation, self-regulation, and command-and-control, combining their characters with the view of reconciling the technology neutrality principle with technology-based regulation. Participatory regulation aims to bridge the public and private sector in order to strike a right balance between flexibility and legal certainty, without stifling innovation.

E-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE, POLICY COMMUNICATION AND DIGITALIZATION OF LAND OWNERSHIP IDENTITY (NETNOGRAPHIC STUDY ON THE ISSUANCE OF ELECTRONIC LAND CERTIFICATES)

The purpose of the research is to obtain an empirical picture of the factors that cause difficulties in implementing public policies based on identity digitalization in e-certificates. The research is based on e-government theory, identity digitization, and policy communication. Netnography research methods were used in a constructive/interpretive paradigm. Data collection was carried out through the ATR Public Group on Facebook on February 24, 2021, March 6 & 8, 2021. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and netnography models in five steps: defining research questions, selecting and identifying communities, collecting data, analyzing, and reporting. Data verification is supported by theoretical triangulation to obtain better credibility. The research findings cover three aspects. First, the public believes that agrarian reform is considered incomplete. This opinion is characterized by a variety of unresolved land issues. Second, electronic land certificates, which are the entrance to digital identity-based e-government governance, are very risky. Third, the crucial aspect is that the government is considered unskilled in choosing the model of communication channels for the public. Consequently, there are pros and cons to the e-certificate policy, which resulted in the state’s failure to execute the electronic land certificate rule. The novelty of this research is in applying netnography design that is relatively new in qualitative research and focuses on the virtual community study. Netnography has a strong and prospective contemporary relevance, especially in the world impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This research recommends the state to carefully consider the public’s response when issuing information technology-based regulations.

The impact of Euro 4 automobile emission regulations on the development of technological capabilities in ASEAN

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to evaluate the policies targeted at regulating automobile emissions among ASEAN countries but with specific attention to the Philippines. Technology-based regulations on motor vehicles play an important role in reducing green-house gas emissions. However, regulations differ based on the level of economic development, policies and technological base of each country. This paper uses an example of the Euro 4 automobile emission regulations to examine its implementation process and strategies of each ASEAN countries. It subsequently focuses on the Philippines to analyse the role of government, multinational automobile manufacturers and local suppliers. The findings show that the strategies of automobile manufacturers have positively affected local suppliers’ technological capabilities.

When Big Data Meet Securitization. Algorithmic Regulation with Passenger Name Records

This contribution deals with big data as a resource for state regulation. The academic interest in the specificities of contemporary technology-based regulation has generated the concept of “algorithmic regulation” (Yeung, Regulat Govern 347(6):1–19, 2017), which yet needs to be refined empirically. This article sets out to analyze the use of passenger name records (PNR) for security governance as a form of algorithmic regulation. It scrutinizes the political debate about the establishment of the use of PNR for security governance in Germany. Along the three phases of the regulatory process (standard setting, monitoring and enforcement), the study sheds light on how Yeung’s taxonomy helps to critically analyze the choices that lead to a specific type of algorithmic regulation. The analysis also unveils the major controversies of the debate (for example about individual rights) and addresses aspects that were left out of the debate (such as the problem of unwanted discrimination through machine learning). The analysis shows how these issues shaped the specific model of PNR-based governance. The German case also raises awareness for the symbolic function of big data in regulation—a dimension that should be taken into account by the concept of algorithmic regulation. The final discussion points out that research about algorithmic regulation is challenged by systemic opacity, which poses conceptual and political problems. The articles ends with a reflection upon the power of the (seemingly unchallenged) promise of big data that lends itself as a resource for securitization strategies.

Flexibility and Stringency in Greenhouse Gas Regulations

The Clean Air Act provides the regulatory framework for climate policy in the United States. Emissions rate performance standards are the metric identified for regulation of the electricity sector, the most important source of emissions. Rates for existing sources could be averaged to achieve flexibility in compliance, although the stringency of policies is ambiguous when flexibility is introduced. For example, a specific emissions rate improvement averaged over a larger set of generators may reduce the actual emissions change. We evaluate three policy designs according to emissions rate, emissions and marginal cost and show how a marginal abatement cost criterion can be applied within a technology-based regulation. This approach can quadruple the emissions reductions that are achieved, with net social benefits exceeding $25 billion in 2020, and with a 1.3 % electricity price increase. Over half of the benefits stem from improvements in conventional air quality.

Structurally Unsound: An Argument for Greater Efficiency through Amendments to the Clean Air Act

In attempting to strike a balance between maintaining economic growth and protecting the environment, Congressional enactments have often tipped the scales in favor of the former over the later. The Clean Air Act (CAA), crafted by Congress along with other comprehensive environmental bills in the 1970’s, is a perfect example of such legislation. Although the CAA is a historic bipartisan success, over time it has grown in complexity and inefficiency with subsequent amendments and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rulemakings. The current incantation of the CAA is a legislative behemoth, one that tends to incentivize evasion of compliance, while inhibiting the implementation of new, cleaner industrial and electricity generating sources. This paper traces the winding path of the CAA - from its inception as an essentially state-based regulation - to the many federally mandated programs that exist today. In laying out the CAA’s evolution, this paper demonstrates how new programs have been layered over one another in attempts to correct the inherent difficulties of efficiently implementing a cooperative federalism structure. Despite the best efforts of legislators and regulators, the result has been inefficient pollution reduction – as well as inefficient economic outcomes. By analyzing the various statutory tools that the CAA employs to encourage pollution reduction through the stationary source programs, this paper also argues that technology-based regulation has been pragmatically the most efficient and equitable way to achieve pollution reduction. This paper concludes with a reevaluation of the criticisms levied at federally mandated technology-based regulation and provides a solution to achieve more efficient future results.

Canadian environmental effects monitoring: experiences with pulp and paper and metal mining regulatory programs.

In Canada, Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM) programs exist within two regulations: the Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations and the new Metal Mining Effluent Regulations under the Canadian Fisheries Act. EEM provides a biological, effects-based feedback loop to assess the effectiveness of technology-based regulations in protecting receiving environments. The promulgation of the Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations, in 1992, represented a significant step forward in the Canadian regulatory approach by incorporating directly into a regulation a requirement to assess the effects of effluent discharges on receiving environments using proven scientific monitoring methodologies. Similarly, an assessment of the aquatic impacts of mines resulted in recommendations to amend the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations, recently promulgated in 2002, and includes an EEM program as a science-based feedback loop. As such, these regulations recognize the possibility that national, technology-based standards may not necessarily protect all receiving environments because of the diversity and variability of both discharges and receiving sites across the country. Since that time, EEM has improved its flexibility by considering both advances in science and the uniqueness of monitoring sites across Canada to allow the most appropriate and cost-effective monitoring approaches at each site while maintaining national consistency. This paper discusses the use of monitoring under two Canadian regulations to assess effects on aquatic ecosystems. As well, the National EEM approach to maintaining up-to-date scientific practices in a national regulatory program is discussed using examples.

Merging the EU Acidification Strategy: Evaluating the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground‐level Ozone

Since the Cold War detente, transboundary air pollution (TAP) has been on the pan-European diplomatic agenda. Under the Convention of Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) – the diplomatic framework for international cooperation on transboundary air pollution – eight protocols have been adopted through a science-driven and evolutionary negotiation process. The latest protocol to the LRTAP, ‘The 1999 Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone’, signed in 1999 in Gothenburg, Sweden, sets out new regulations – national emission ceilings (NECs) and technologybased regulations – on sulphur oxides (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ammonia (NH3), with ‘flexibility’ clauses.

Why technology-based regulations don't work.

Why technology-based regulations don't work.

What We Know About Opportunities for Intergovernmental Institutional Innovation: Policy Issues for an Industrializing Animal Agriculture Sector

Textbook wisdom would suggest that the Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are taking an appropriate approach to policies regarding environmental risks associated with animal agriculture in the United States. Relevant federal environmental regulations are based on performance standards, which are preferred on economic efficiency grounds over technology-based regulation (Baumol and Oates). Furthermore, the states are given the opportunity to implement these standards-based federal regulations, a feature that allows for policy customization in accordance with unique environmental attributes of each state. Pressure from environmental regulation, in combination with the increased mobility of large vertically integrated livestock production units (Abdalla, Lanyon, and Hallberg) should, in theory, act to optimally allocate concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in areas of the country that have low environmental vulnerability to the byproducts of animal agriculture, and, thus, have lower costs of compliance. Smaller and land-extensive livestock operations that are not so readily mobile would remain in locations where, because of lower and different environmental risk