The last two decades have been marked by a sea change in the world of regulation—regulatory laws which facilitate the creation of independent regulators have been passed in many countries, both developed and developing. However, it has been observed that mere adoption of regulatory laws is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for changes in regulatory/economic outcomes. Implementation often constitutes the crucial difference between success and failure and this is particularly true in developing countries.

The mentioned premise constitutes the starting point of this volume compiled by CUTS as a part of a project entitled the Competition Regulation and Development Research Forum (CDRF), which is a compendium of studies devoted to characterising the state of the world in regulation in developing countries and identifying the political economy and governance constraints that often frustrate the successful implementation of regulatory laws in the developing world. Such detailed identification of constraints is necessary if we are to solve the puzzle of how regulatory objectives/provisions that look so good on paper end up being so ineffective in practice.

The study will be of interest to almost the entire spectrum of professionals connected to regulation or its use: academicians, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, members of competition authorities or sector regulatory agencies etc. It is hoped that through this volume the study of regulation in developing countries emerges as a distinct field, as it should, given that these countries have regulatory needs and constraints that differ markedly from those developed countries.

Pradeep S. Mehta, CUTS International and CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition, India

Simon J. Evenett, Universität St. Gallen and CEPR, Switzerland.

Luis Andres, World Bank, USA

Thankom Arun, Lancashire Business School, UK

Max Everest-Phillips, Senior Governance Adviser, Growth and Investment Group, Department for International Development, UK

Jose Luis Guasch, World Bank and University of California, San Diego, USA

Thula Kaira, Zambia Competition Commission, Zambia

Devendra G. Kodwani, The OU Business School, UK

Eduardo Luiz Machado, Technological Research Institute (IPT), Brazil

Michael W. Nicholson, Transylvania University, USA

Lucas Martins Novaes, Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), Brazil

Gesner Oliveira, Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), Brazil

Masrur Reaz, DFID, Bangladesh

Cezley Sampson, Mona Institute of Business at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica

Faye Sampson, Legal Consultant, Jamaica

D. Daniel Sokol, University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, USA

Kyle W. Stiegert, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Stephane Straub, University of Edinburgh, UK

Valentina Zoghbi, Project Lawyer at the International Bar Association, UK