Managing Regulatory Risks and Defining the Parameters of Blame: A Focus on the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority

Risk-based regulation is a new arrival in the lexicon of risk and regulation. Regulators in Australia, Canada, and the UK have begun developing systems and processes to assess the probability and impact of compliance failures by regulated firms, and to adjust their relationship with firms accordingly. This article explores the motivations for, and key elements of, the risk-based frameworks of one of those regulators, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). It broadens out from this case study to argue first, that risk-based regulation goes hand in hand with the technique of "meta" regulation, the regulation of the firm's own internal self regulation, and will both fuel and be fueled by any trend towards the latter. Second, it argues that risk-based frameworks are not risk-free: whilst they seek to manage risks they inevitably introduce their own. Third, risk-based regulatory frameworks have the potential both to expose and obscure key sociopolitical and socioeconomic choices as to the amount or types of regulatory failures that an agency will tolerate, and which in effect it is requiring society to tolerate. "Risk based frameworks" are attempt to define what are acceptable "failures" and what are not, and thus to define the parameters of blame.     

INSTITUTIONAL LAYERING IN GOVERNING HEALTHCARE QUALITY

Since the 1980s, regulated markets and New Public Management have been introduced in the public sector across the world. How they have affected existing governance mechanisms such as self‐regulation and state regulation has remained largely unexplored, however. This article examines the origins and consequences of institutional layering in governing healthcare quality. Dutch health care, where a market‐based system has been introduced, is used as a case study. The results show that this market‐based system did not replace but modified existing institutional arrangements. As a result, hospitals have to deal with the fragmentation of quality demands. Using the concept of institutional layering, this study shows how different arrangements interact. As a consequence, the introduction of a certain policy reform will work out differently in different countries and policy sectors. Our ‘archaeological’ study in this layering can be seen as an example of how such incremental change can be studied in detail.     

The Savings and Loan Debacle of the 1980s: White-Collar Crime or Risky Business?*

This paper examines the role of white-collar crime in the savings and loan crisis. Noting economists' assertions that crime was only a minor ingredient in the crisis, we compare the explanatory power of this “minimal fraud” model to that of its “material fraud” alternative. Bringing together evidence from every major study of thrifts in the 1980s, we argue that only the material fraud hypothesis can make sense of these data. This study demonstrates the utility of deductive reasoning in distinguishing between white-collar crime and ordinary business transactions, thereby potentially contributing to prosecutorial efforts, and helping resolve long-standing methodological dilemmas confronting white-collar criminologists.     

FORCED MIGRATION, LAND-USE CHANGE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE FOREST REGION OF GUINEA

This paper examines the impact of forced migration on land usechange in Yomou prefecture in the forest region of Guinea froma broadly ‘political economy’ perspective. Focusingon the period since 1989, when over 500,000 refugees from Liberiaand Sierra Leone have been present in the region, it considersthe extent and mechanisms through which refugees have gainedaccess to land in three study villages, and seeks explanationsfor the pattern of land use change that has occurred. This isseen as reflecting both the evolution of the agricultural economyof the region, and socio-political change in local communities.Implications for both environmental change, and the livelihoodsof refugees and local communities are considered.