Fundamentals of Business

Regulation can be considered as legal restrictions promulgated...

Regulation can be considered as legal restrictions promulgated by government authority. One can consider at least two levels in democracies - legislative acts, and implementing specifications of conduct imposed by administrative agencies through rulemaking supported by a threat of sanction or a fine. This administrative law or implementing regulatory law is in contrast to statutory or case law.

Regulation mandated by a state attempts to produce outcomes which might not otherwise occur, produce or prevent outcomes in different places to what might otherwise occur, or produce or prevent outcomes in different timescales than would otherwise occur.

Common examples of regulation include attempts to control market entries, prices, wages, pollution effects, employment for certain people in certain industries, standards of production for certain goods and services. The economics of imposing or removing regulations relating to markets is analysed in regulatory economics.

A directive is a legislative act of the European Union which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result. It can be distinguished from European Union regulations which are self-executing and do not require any implementing measures. Directives normally leave member states with a certain amount of leeway as to the exact rules to be adopted.

Four Freedoms (European Union)
In European Union law, the Four Freedoms is a common term for a set of Treaty provisions, secondary legislation and court decisions, protecting the ability of Goods, Services, Capital, and Labour to move freely within the Internal Market of the European Union. More precisely, they are:
√ The free movement of goods;
√ The free movement of services and freedom of establishment;
√ The free movement of persons (and citizenship), including free movement of workers;
√ The free movement of capital.