NCJ Number
140896
Journal
Law & Policy Volume: 13 Issue: 4 Dated: special issue (October 1991) Pages: 263-295
Date Published
1991
Length
33 pages
Annotation
In examining the dilemma of regulating the complex and highly differentiated stock market, the author argues that regulations with legitimacy needs for status neutrality serve primarily to protect investors with limited capacity for managing risk on their own.
Abstract
In competitive markets, players with greater capacity for risk management, for example, access to market intelligence, sizable reserves to cushion losses, and enhanced technologies for risk assessment, seek out new arrangements for managing risk. These privatized forms of risk management interact with markets and market regulation in ways that undermine the regulatory program for those who depend on it most. This form of regulatory bias is illustrated by examining events surrounding Black Monday, the stock market crash of October 1987. The author recommends that regulatory programs systematically recognize how variation in the ability of actors to self-regulate and mobilize privatized forms of regulation influences the integrity of the regulatory program as a whole. She also suggests that an effort be made to eliminate formal/informal and state/private distinctions that tend to obfuscate how regulatory power operates in business contexts. 110 references and 34 notes