Conclusion

The collection of works that have been put together in this book provide some evidence of what we know and what we aim to better understand about the political economy of local regulation. On the whole, these works illustrate many of the issues encountered in regulating the provision of public services at the local level: for example, regulations conceived and designed at the national (or sometimes supernational) level may conflict with existing regulatory practices and stakeholders’ interests at the local one; the relationship between the local regulators and the regulated firms may be one of collusion and cronyism rather than independence and integrity; regulatory institutions and practices may differ a lot across subnational jurisdictions, even within the same country and at a relatively short geographical distance; and developing countries still struggle to develop the capacity to administer complex regulatory systems and stimulate a culture of compliance with regulatory principles and rules.