ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the competing approaches to institutional design evident in the history of US regulation. It begins with examination of the Progressive Era, the period from the 1890s to the 1920s that witnessed the rise of the regulatory state. The chapter focuses on a few key elements: the assumptions embraced by Progressive reformers and their implications for key regulatory design decisions. The New Deal, unsurprisingly, was shaped both by the crisis of the Great Depression and the intellectual and administrative legacy of Progressivism. Thomas K. McCraw's quotes: "The single overarching idea that tied the competing philosophies together was the conviction shared by a majority of New Dealers that economic regulation by expert commissions would bring just results". Although the capture theory was developed in reference to old-style economic regulations, concern over capture also informed the debates over the new social regulation. Regulatory agencies could be understood as one element in a much larger configuration of public and private institutions.
