Acceso usuarios
J. Samuel Barkin
There is a large body of literature, both within academic International Relations and in popular discourses, about globalization and regulatory convergence, either through regulatory races to the bottom or the upwards harmonization of regulatory standards. Neither pattern is well supported by empirical findings with respect to industries that can easily move offshore in search of lower regulatory standards. Rather, global patterns of regulation in these industries tend toward dispersion rather than conversion either upward or downward. There is as yet, however, little work in the International Relations literature on how to understand these patterns of global regulatory dispersion, in which states attract offshore business by establishing differentiated regulatory niches. One of the key models of regulatory dispersion in the economics literature was developed by Charles Tiebout in the context of the provision of municipal services, but several International Relations scholars have noted that the assumptions of the model are not appropriate to international regulatory competition. This article develops a model of international regulatory heterogeneity that draws on Tiebout’s, and that describes patterns of regulatory dispersion in industries that engage in international regulatory arbitrage. It explains both specific patterns of dispersion and mechanisms for increasing average regulatory levels over time.
