Regulation

The growth of regulation has been a modern phenomena. Whether designed to push commerce in favoured directions or to combat unpriced "spillover" effects of commercial activity, its costs are considerable. 

 

All governments express concern about these costs and implement measures to address them.  These have brought mixed results - while there has generally been reductions in regulation designed to shape the nature of production through import tariffs and competition restraints, this has been massively outweighed by increases in regulation for social purposes and to combat "spillovers" in environmental, safety and labour market matters.