Hello Adam,

maybe you could use an analogous approach to La Porta et al. (2000), Investor protection and corporate governance, Journal of Financial Economics (58), p. 3-27?

They show how to develop proxies for the concepts of shareholder protection, creditor protection, and enforcement.

Best,

Tobias

Thank you Tobias:)

the regulation of business in general is widely covered in several databases, you can access them through QOG - QOG, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

qog.pol.gu.se/

They do not cover toursm industry as such, however, but I would be surprised if any specific index for it is not closely correlated with the several generic 'doing business' regulatory scores

You can measure economics inefficiencies. Empirical evidence suggets that more regulated sector, more economics inefficiencies (in terms of wealth creation). See Luis Cabral book about Industrial Organization.

Dear Massimo,

can you give me some more hints where to find this data on this site. I was seeking regulation among variety of data but without success, alas.

Still I found many other useful data there:)

Dear Javier,

I found evidence from: 

Qu, R., & Ennew, C. T. (2005). Developing a market orientation in a transitional economy: the role of government regulation and ownership structure. Tourism Management, 24(1), 82–89. doi:10.1509/jppm.24.1.82.63900

which basicly says that general business regulation is negatively affecting marketing orientation of firms but industry specific regulation is positively affecting marketing orientation of firms. 

I am going to support this hypothesis on the European ground and I am looking smth to enable me to compare industry specific regulation across various countries. 

 Hi,

Be careful with economic principles. I don't know about tourism studies but Cabral is one of the most popular economist. Chicago School don't like regulation in markets because it generates inefficiencies. There are other authors who don't think the same but Chicago School is perhaps the most prestigious in economic discipline. Several authors have been awarded with Nobel Prize. However, the last Nobel Prize in Economics, Jean Tirole, could supports some regulation in specific sectors. You can read his book The Theory of Industrial Organization,

There is an enormous literature on the economic regulation of the agricultural sector for instance. See the CAB International abstracts (should be in your library). It is extremely complex. It cannot be measured, and anybody who thinks it can has never seen a real study of a real market.

All markets need regulation to survive. That is why the stock market, etc, have their own, very strict, regulation and enforcement. Many have their own grading standards, perhaps supported by the state. Our supermarkets would not survive two months without very strict hygene and safety legislation. Some free market nutters imposed a stock market in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, with completely predictable consequences.

Many regulations are of course badly designed and counter productive. Or excellent regulations become unproductive because of a change in the market. It would take many years to quantify their costs. It is relatively easy in most cases to remove the most obvious inefficiencies, then plan the next set of reforms when the market has settled down in a year or two. This avoids the famines etc that follows the free market reforms of the Free Market imposed by the IMF and World Bank. I have got the changes introduced in anything from one month to five years, but see Bowbrick 2012 for a 32 year delay in introducing the reforms to a very badly designed EC standards system, because it threatened bureaucrats.

I like response of Peter. Their arguments are ok. However one aspect is always true: The maximum wealth creation level occurs only when transaction costs are 0. Higher competence level in the market, lower transaction costs and then, higher level of wealth creation. Regulation has to pursue competence levels improvements.  In other cases, inefficiency problems will appear and wealth creation will decrease. Excuse my english, it is not very good.

How do we measure the costs of inadequate regulation of the banking sector which caused the 2008 crash and wrecked the world economy? Here, as usually is the case when regulating a whole market, ordinary microeconomics does not apply. For this reason we are not allowed to use cost:benefit analysis for investments that will change the market. This is pretty fundamental economics.

But empirical evidence shows that the most regulated sectors are the most inefficiency sectors and wealth creation is very far from optimal values... Many regulated sectors have been increased their efficiency and wealth creation when regulation releases (for example process of liberalization is Spain in 1996-2004 period)... The most efficiently sectors are always the most competitive... Banking sector was not competitive... this was the principal problem... Is Spain, the  financial organizations most affected by financial crash have been "Caja de Ahorros" that were the more regulated (for example, politicians in boards, etc...). 

 Regulation can be necessary sometimes, its true... but it should be oriented to increase competition level in the markets... For example, to promote ethical behabiour in directors of boards, sometimes it is neccesary regulation. On the contrary, other scenarios don't need regulation... and it can generate lower wealth creation...

Thank you VERY much for your contribution. 

My focus is however, not the question whether regulation affect positively or negatively on the market, but whether there is any attempt to measure (quantify) regulation en block or specific one. For example HDI index is common to present freedom of economy. Basicly I am looking for something similar which is related to tourism (or other sectors to compare). It should encompass only industry-specific regulations.

A more "useful" or realistic measure would be to focus on the interaction between the businesses and the prevailing market structure:

1.Welfare consideration of regulation in terms of entry charges and taxes:

http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/ykng/ClarkeNg1993b.pdf

2.Looking at the transaction costs associated with regulation in a tourism context:

http://www.uu.nl/sites/default/files/koblar_kovac_extended_abstract_utrecht_2015_.pdf

OR

3. Inter-firm behavior, and flexibility of sourcing in tourism:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283085844_Supply_Chain_Collaboration_in_Tourism_A_Transaction_Cost_Economics_Analysis

4. At the consumer-market level, if we think of regulation as "anti-sharing economy" than some implications and debate worth considering are presented here related to sharing platforms and their impact on the tourism industry/accommodation sector:

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/business/airbnb-lyft-uber-bike-share-sharing-economy-research-roundup

Ultimately our predilection as economists is to look at the "efficiency of pricing" as a quantification. The question is what "price" should we focus on, and if there are distortions, how to discount in such a way as to unravel the "fundamentals".  

Article Supply Chain Collaboration in Tourism: A Transaction Cost Ec...