UK regulatory authorities in the utilities sector are hybrid communities of lawyers and economists. Since the liberalisation of essential services, expert economists enjoy enormous discretionary powers in advancing the agencies’ broad statutory objectives. Yet, despite the enormous societal impact of economic regulation, existing scholarship in the fields of public law and regulation has, with very few exceptions, disregarded these actors and the very essence of their work. This paper aims to address this gap in the literature by blending theoretical with empirical insights deriving from 14 semi-structured elite interviews with regulatory economists in the regulatory agencies for energy (Ofgem), telecoms (Ofcom) and water (Ofwat). The hypothesis explored is that the use of economic evidence by regulators has had the effect of expanding their discretionary space. The article puts forward a theoretical framework inspired by Craig Parsons’ typology of political action so as to identify and examine the nature and scope of the constraints that inform and shape the influence of economics in the exercise of regulatory discretion.

中文翻译：

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经济学家是国王吗？英国公用事业监管机构的经济证据和酌情评估

英国公用事业部门的监管机构是律师和经济学家的混合社区。自从基本服务自由化以来，专家经济学家在推进机构广泛的法定目标方面享有巨大的自由裁量权。然而，尽管经济监管对社会产生了巨大影响，但公法和监管领域的现有学术研究无一例外地忽视了这些行为者及其工作的本质。本文旨在通过将理论与实证见解相结合来解决文献中的这一空白，这些见解来自对能源 (Ofgem)、电信 (Ofcom) 和水 (Ofwat) 监管机构的监管经济学家的 14 次半结构化精英访谈。所探讨的假设是监管机构使用经济证据具有扩大其自由裁量空间的效果。本文提出了一个受克雷格·帕森斯 (Craig Parsons) 的政治行为类型学启发的理论框架，以识别和检查约束的性质和范围，这些约束为经济学在监管自由裁量权的行使中的影响提供信息和影响。