Barriers to Cooperation between Regulatory Authority and Companies in the Field of Regulation from the Perspective of Behavioural Economics

Abstract

The aim of the article was to assess the importance of barriers to cooperation between regulatory authority and companies in the field of regulation from the perspective of behavioural economics. To achieve this goal the results of survey research conducted in Poland in the Office of Electronic Communications (OEC, n = 107) and the Energy Regulatory Office (ERO, n = 157) were used. The results of the research showed relatively greater importance of barriers in the form of risk propensity, market assessment, and choice of regulation tool, as well as the lack of partner relations and trust. It was indicated that the lack of need for cooperation, discouragement from cooperation and dishonesty are relatively less significant barriers. In several cases statistically significant differences in the assessment of these barriers between UKE and URE officials were also found. From the perspective of behavioural economics the importance of prospect theory, anchoring heuristic, framing effect, overconfidence effect, status quo effect and noise phenomenon was indicated.