Government Policy: Targets and Instruments

This chapter attempts to discover desirable policy objectives for the North Sea. By predicting the outcome in an unregulated market and comparing it to the outcome where the maximum value added is obtained, we are able to ascertain desirable directions for government policy. We then examine stated government policy intentions and analyse, in the third section of the chapter, the effectiveness of the measures adopted to reach these intentions. Our concern is first, to see if government policy intentions are desirable, and second, to see if government policy functions in a way that improves on the unregulated market.