Independence of a Regulatory Institution - a Means to Alleviate Credibility Problems in the CEE Countries

Introduction

In Hungary and the Central-European region, state regulation has been at the forefront of interest since the beginning of the economic transition. Among the many interesting questions raised, we would like to analyze the problem of building an appropriate regulatory system allowing the industry to operate efficiently from a social point of view. We use the term "regulatory system" for the description of decision rights. A particular regulatory system amounts to the allocation of decision rights between the different actors in a regulatory game (regulatory agency, government, courts, consumer organizations, competition office). We do not propose a specific incentive scheme, which must be enforced (and is enforceable), instead we concentrate on the possible enforcement mechanisms.