This review of China's regulatory system focuses on the overall economic context for regulatory reform, the government’s capacity to manage regulatory reform, competition policy and enforcement, and market openness.

The second of two volumes, this text discusses the vertical issues involved in regulatory reform. The contributors describe in detail the regulatory reforms which are needed or have been initiated in nine major industrial sectors, including automobiles, textiles and clothing, retail trade, chemicals, banking, road transport, telecoms, electricity and (scheduled) air transport. They argue that regulatory reform can, more often than not, help improve the competitiveness of companies while generating net growth effects for the European Union as a whole.

This book develops and applies an inventive theoretical approach to the comparative study of the neglected aspect of the real (or "de facto") independence of regulatory agencies. The book begins with an examination of the organisational and institutional factors shaping the de facto independence of regulatory agencies in Western Europe. There follows an analysis of the role of independent regulatory agencies in the policy-making process, using de facto independence as an explanatory variable. The final section is devoted to the relationship between regulatory agencies and the news media. In the conclusive discussion, the author also tackles a set of normative questions, which relates to the virtues and perils of independence.