Regulation and its modes

Regulation, in the sense of rules issued for the purpose of controlling the manner in which private and public enterprises conduct their operations, is of course as old as government. Moreover, the normative justification of regulation-the correction of what are today called 'market failures', for example, monopoly power-is hardly new: Machlup's chronology of antimonopoly regulation, for example, includes an edict of the Roman Emperor Zeno from AD 483, prohibiting all monopolies, combinations and price agreements; the decision of an English court in 1603 (Darcy v. Allin) declaring a monopoly in playing cards void as against common law because it results in higher prices and lower employment; and the decree of the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature in 1641 that 'there shall be no monopolies granted or allowed among us but of such new inventions as are profitable to the country, and that for a short time' (Machlup 1952:152-7).