This edition of Business History Review takes up a critical subject of our time: modern capitalism and the need for effective and meaningful regulation. This issue, entitled “New Perspectives in Regulatory History,” is co-organized by Laura Phillips Sawyer, Harvard Business School, and Herbert Hovenkamp, the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Wharton School.
It continues BHR's history of engagement with the topic, one of keen interest to former editor Thomas K. McCraw. In “Regulation in America: A Review Article,” published in the journal in 1975, McCraw observed that, “With accelerating momentum over the last quarter-century, the subject of economic regulation by state and federal commissions has undergone rigorous reinterpretation” (summer issue, p. 159).
The same has been true of the past quarter century as the rise of new global business giants, rapid technological change, growing divisions in the distribution of wealth, and increasing environmental devastation have brought renewed interest in the field of regulation. This issue brings together articles and commentary from a multidisciplinary group of leading scholars, including the two guest editors, Laura Phillips Sawyer and Herbert Hovenkamp, in addition to Rebecca Allensworth, Daniel Crane, Anne Fleming, Lily Geismer, David Gerber, Lina Khan, William Novak, Susie Pak, and Reuel Schiller.
