Argentina Argentina underwent heavy economic deregulation,
privatization, and had a
fixed exchange rate during the
Menem administration (1989–1999). In December 2001,
Paul Krugman compared
Enron with Argentina, claiming that both were experiencing economic collapse due to excessive deregulation. Two months later, Herbert Inhaber claimed that Krugman
confused correlation with causation, and neither collapse was due to excessive deregulation. Deregulation again become a focus point of
Javier Milei presidency since 2023 by reducing the government intervention and simplifying bureaucracy from repealing rent control to liberalizing the communication sector. Deregulation and State Transformation Minister
Federico Sturzenegger has stated in 2025 that there will be more red tape cuts in 2025 which include lowering tax to imported cars and cut electric car regulations. The deregulation policies so far has stabilized the economy for the first time with balanced budget and controlled inflation.
Australia Having announced a wide range of deregulatory policies,
Labor Prime Minister
Bob Hawke announced the policy of "Minimum Effective Regulation" in 1986. This introduced now-familiar requirements for "regulatory impact statements", but compliance by governmental agencies took many years. The labor market under the Hawke/Keating governments operated under the
Prices and Incomes Accord. In the mid-90s
John Howard's
Liberal Party began deregulation of the labor market with the
Workplace Relations Act 1996, going much further in 2005 through its
WorkChoices policy. However, this was reversed under the following
Rudd Labor government.
Brazil After
Dilma's impeachment, Michel Temer introduced a
labor reform, besides allowing up to 100% of foreign capital on Brazilian air companies and giving more protection to state-owned enterprises from political pressure. Bolsonaro administration also promoted deregulations (even the expression "Bolsonomics" was created), Natural Gas Law, Basic Sanitation Legal Framework, besides allowing the direct sale of ethanol by fuel stations and opening rail transport industry to private investment. and deregulating the use of foreign currency.
Canada Natural gas is deregulated in most of the country, with the exception of some Atlantic provinces and some pockets like Vancouver Island and Medicine Hat. Most of this deregulation happened in the mid-1980s.
Comparison shopping websites operate in some of these jurisdictions, particularly Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. The other provinces are small markets and have not attracted suppliers. Customers have the choice of purchasing from a local distribution company (LDC) or a deregulated supplier. In most provinces the LDC is not allowed to offer a term contract, just a variable price based on the spot market. LDC prices are changed either monthly or quarterly.
Ontario began deregulation of electricity supply in 2002, but pulled back temporarily due to voter and consumer backlash at the resulting price volatility. Since 2006, the
European Common Aviation Area has given carriers from one EU country the
freedom of the air in most others.
Ireland The taxi industry was deregulated in
Ireland in 2000, Their claim was dismissed two years later.
New Zealand New Zealand Governments adopted policies of extensive deregulation from 1984 to 1995. Originally initiated by the
Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand, Thatcher's successor
John Major, succeeded in gaining an opt out for Britain from the social aspects of the
Maastricht Treaty in 1992. From 1997 to 2010, the
Labour governments of
Tony Blair and
Gordon Brown developed a programme called "
better regulation". This required government departments to review, simplify or abolish existing regulations, and a "one in, one out" approach to new regulations. In 1997, Chancellor Brown announced the "freeing" of the
Bank of England to set monetary policy, so the Bank was no longer under direct government control. In 2005,
Prime Minister Blair said that: In 2006, new primary legislation (the
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006) was introduced to establish statutory principles and a code of practice and it permits ministers to make
Regulatory Reform Orders (RROs) to deal with older laws which they deem to be out of date, obscure or irrelevant. This act has often been criticized and was described in Parliament by
Lord (Patrick) Jenkin as the "Abolition of Parliament Act". Nonetheless, in 2006,
Sir Terence Etherton, Chairman of the
Law Commission stated that each year over 10,000 pages of new legislation are added either by
Acts of Parliament or orders made under them. In 2009 a review for the Conservative Party found the number closer to 18,000 pages, excluding EU directives. In 2010, there were a record 3,504 new laws introduced, about 13.8 per day. Likewise, whereas in the 1970s there were about 100 pages of
pension rules in total, by 2018 there were closer to 160,000.
United States History of regulation One problem that encouraged deregulation was the way in which regulated industries often come to control the government
regulatory agencies in a process known as
regulatory capture. Industries then use regulation to serve their own interests, at the expense of the consumer. A similar pattern has been seen with the deregulation process itself, often effectively controlled by regulated industries through lobbying. Such political forces, however, exist in many other forms for other
lobby groups. Examples of deregulated industries in the United States are banking, telecommunications, airlines, and natural resources. During the
Progressive Era (1890s–1920),
Presidents Theodore Roosevelt,
William Howard Taft, and
Woodrow Wilson instituted regulation on parts of the American economy, most notably big business and industry. Some prominent reforms were
trust-busting (the destruction and banning of monopolies), the creation of laws protecting the American consumer, the creation of a federal income tax (by the
Sixteenth Amendment; the income tax used a
progressive tax structure with especially high taxes on the wealthy), the establishment of the
Federal Reserve, the institution of shorter
working hours, higher
wages, better living conditions, better rights and privileges to trade unions, protection of the rights of
strikers, banning of unfair labor practices, and the delivery of more
social services to the working classes and
social safety nets to many unemployed workers, thus helping to create a
welfare state. During the presidencies of
Warren Harding (1921–23) and
Calvin Coolidge (1923–29), the federal government generally pursued
laissez-faire economic policies. After the onset of the
Great Depression, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented many economic regulations, including the
National Industrial Recovery Act (which was struck down by the Supreme Court), regulation of trucking, airlines and communications, the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the
Glass–Steagall Act of 1933. These regulations stayed largely in place until
Richard Nixon's Administration. In supporting his competition-limiting regulatory initiatives President Roosevelt blamed the excesses of big business for causing an
economic bubble. However, historians lack consensus in describing the causal relationship between various events and the role of government economic policy in causing or ameliorating the Depression.
1970–2000 Deregulation gained momentum in the 1970s, influenced by research by the
Chicago school of economics and the theories of
George Stigler,
Alfred E. Kahn,), White House Office of Consumer Affairs (represented by Jack Pearce), Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, Department of Labor, and other agencies. The proposal addressed both rail and truck transportation, but not air carriage. (92d Congress, Senate Bill 2842) The developers of this legislation in this Administration sought to cultivate support from commercial buyers of transportation services,
consumer organizations, economists, and environmental organization leaders. This 'civil society' coalition became a template for coalitions influential in efforts to deregulate trucking and air transport later in the decade.
Ford administration After Nixon left office, the
Gerald Ford presidency, with the allied interests, secured passage of the first significant change in regulatory policy in a pro-competitive direction, in the
Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976.
Carter administration President
Jimmy Carter – aided by economic adviser Alfred E. Kahn Carter also worked with Congress to produce the
Staggers Rail Act (signed October 14, 1980), and the
Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (signed July 1, 1980).
1970s deregulation effects These were the major deregulation acts in transportation that set the general conceptual and legislative framework, which replaced the regulatory systems put in place between the 1880s and the 1930s. The dominant common theme of these Acts was to lessen
barriers to entry in transport markets and promote more independent, competitive pricing among transport service providers, substituting the freed-up competitive market forces for detailed regulatory control of entry, exit, and price making in transport markets. Thus deregulation arose, though regulations to promote competition were put in place.
Reagan administration U.S. President
Ronald Reagan campaigned on the promise of rolling back environmental regulations. His devotion to the economic beliefs of
Milton Friedman led him to promote the deregulation of finance, agriculture, and transportation. A series of substantial enactments were needed to work out the process of encouraging competition in transportation. Interstate buses were addressed in 1982, in the
Bus Regulatory Reform Act of 1982. Freight forwarders (freight aggregators) got more freedoms in the
Surface Freight Forwarder Deregulation Act of 1986. As many states continued to regulate the operations of motor carriers within their own state, the intrastate aspect of the trucking and bus industries was addressed in the
Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994, which provided that "a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of two or more States may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier." (c)(1) (Supp. V 1999). Ocean transportation was the last to be addressed. This was done in two acts, the
Shipping Act of 1984 and the
Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998. These acts were less thoroughgoing than the legislation dealing with U.S. domestic transportation, in that they left in place the "conference" system in international ocean liner shipping, which historically embodied cartel mechanisms. However, these acts permitted independent rate-making by conference participants, and the 1998 Act permitted secret contract rates, which tend to undercut collective carrier pricing. According to the
United States Federal Maritime Commission, in an assessment in 2001, this appears to have opened up substantial competitive activity in ocean shipping, with beneficial economic results.
Energy The
Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act was a regulating law, consisting of a mix of regulations and deregulation, which passed in response to
OPEC price hikes and domestic price controls which affected the
1973 oil crisis in the United States. After adoption of this federal legislation, numerous state legislation known as
Natural Gas Choice programs have sprung up in several states, as well as the District of Columbia. Natural Gas Choice programs allow residential and small volume natural gas users to compare purchases from natural gas suppliers with traditional utility companies. There are currently hundreds of federally unregulated natural gas suppliers operating in the US. Regulation characteristics of Natural Gas Choice programs vary between the laws of the currently adoptive 21 states (as of 2008). Deregulation of the electricity sector in the U.S. began in 1992. The
Energy Policy Act of 1992 eliminated obstacles for wholesale electricity competition, but deregulation has yet to be introduced in all states. As of April 2014, 16 U.S. states (
Connecticut,
Delaware,
Illinois,
Maine,
Maryland,
Massachusetts,
Michigan,
Montana,
New Hampshire,
New Jersey,
New York,
Ohio,
Oregon,
Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, and
Texas) and the
District of Columbia have introduced deregulated
electricity markets to consumers in some capacity. Additionally, seven states (
Arizona,
Arkansas,
California,
Nevada,
New Mexico,
Virginia, and
Wyoming) began the process of electricity deregulation in some capacity but have since suspended deregulation efforts.
Communications Deregulation was put into effect in the communications industry by the government at the start of the
Multi-Channel Transition era. This deregulation put into place a division of labor between the studios and the networks. Communications in the United States (and internationally) are areas in which both technology and regulatory policy have been in flux. The rapid development of computer and communications technology – particularly the Internet – have increased the size and variety of communications offerings. Wireless, traditional landline telephone, and cable companies increasingly invade each other's traditional markets and compete across a broad spectrum of activities. The
Federal Communications Commission and Congress appear to be attempting to facilitate this evolution. In mainstream economic thinking, development of this competition would militate against detailed regulatory control of prices and service offerings, and hence favor deregulation of prices and entry into markets. On the other hand, there exists substantial concern about concentration of media ownership resulting from relaxation of historic controls on media ownership designed to safeguard diversity of viewpoint and open discussion in the society, and about what some perceive as high prices in cable company offerings at this point.
Finance The
financial sector in the U.S. has been considerably deregulated in recent decades, which has allowed for greater
financial risktaking. The financial sector used its considerable political sway in
Congress and in the political establishment and influenced the ideology of political institutions to press for more and more deregulation. Among the most important of the regulatory changes was the
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, which repealed the parts of the
Glass–Steagall Act regarding interest rate regulation via retail banking. The
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. Such deregulation of the financial sector in the United States fostered greater risktaking by finance sector firms through the creation of
innovative financial instruments and practices, including
securitization of loan obligations of various sorts and
credit default swaps. This caused a series of financial crises, including the
savings and loan crisis, the
Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis, each of which necessitated major bailouts, and the derivatives scandals of 1994. These warning signs were ignored as financial deregulating continued, even in view of the inadequacy of
industry self-regulation as shown by the financial collapses and bailout. The 1998 bailout of LTCM sent the signal to large "
too-big-to-fail" financial firms that they would not have to suffer the
consequences of the great risks they take. Thus, the greater risktaking allowed by deregulation and encouraged by the bailout paved the way for the
2008 financial crisis.
Related legislation • 1976 –
Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act PL 94-435 • 1977 –
Emergency Natural Gas Act PL 95-2 • 1978 –
Airline Deregulation Act PL 95-50 • 1978 –
National Gas Policy Act PL 95-621 • 1980 –
Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act PL 96-221 • 1980 –
Motor Carrier Act PL 96-296 • 1980 –
Regulatory Flexibility Act PL 96-354 • 1980 –
Staggers Rail Act PL 96-448 • 1982 –
Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act PL 97-320 • 1982 –
Bus Regulatory Reform Act PL 97-261 • 1989 –
Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act PL 101-60 • 1992 –
National Energy Policy Act PL 102-486 • 1996 –
Telecommunications Act PL 104-104 • 1999 –
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act PL 106-102 == Controversy ==