REGULATION: Government rules or laws that control the activities of businesses and consumers. The motivation for regulation is that businesses are inclined to do things that are harmful to the public--actions which need to be prevented or otherwise controlled. Regulation is essentially an extension of government's authority to protect one member of society from another. It tends to take one of two forms--(1) industry regulation that's intended to prevent firms from gaining and abusing excessive market control and (2) social regulation that seeks to protect consumers for problems caused by pollution, unsafe products, and the lack of information (market failure).

     See also | government | government functions | public sector | public goods | regulatory policy | second estate | industry regulation | social regulation | market control | pollution | market failure | information | antitrust laws | taxes | price ceiling | price floor | regulation, capture theory | deregulation |

REGULATION, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2026. [Accessed: July 21, 2026].

Back to the GLOSS*arama

A curve that graphically represents the relation between the marginal cost incurred by a firm in the short-run product of a good or service and the quantity of output produced. This curve is constructed to capture the relation between marginal cost and the level of output, holding other variables like technology and resource prices constant. Three related curves are average total cost curve, average variable cost curve, and average fixed cost curve.

Complete Entry | Visit the WEB*pedia

Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time searching the newspaper want ads hoping to buy either 500 feet of telephone cable or a package of 4 by 6 index cards, the ones with lines. Be on the lookout for vindictive digital clocks with revenge on their minds.
Your Complete Scope

This isn't me! What am I?

-- Erma Bombeck, writer

User Feedback