Regulation is a translation of the English Regulation, usually translated as "regulation", "regulation" or "regulation". In academia, there is no substantive difference between the use of "regulation" or "regulation" when domestic scholars translate foreign works and write their own works; The "supervision" widely used in the actual sector can be divided into narrow supervision and broad supervision, in which the concept and scope of narrow supervision are basically equivalent to "regulation", while broad supervision is usually understood and split into "supervision and management", which is equivalent to general administrative management. Therefore, all administrative supervision and management acts of all government agencies are generally referred to as supervision. The author believes that generalized regulation in a broad sense is a misunderstanding of regulation. This is because control is different from general administration. First of all, from the perspective of objects, administrative management occurs within government departments, and its management objects are mainly subordinate (subordinate) units of government departments; The object of control is not the subordinate (subordinate) units of the government, but independent market entities (enterprises and individuals). Secondly, from the perspective of the mutual relationship between subject and object, administrative management is the relationship between government departments and government departments, and the relationship between subject and object is often superior-subordinate, not completely independent; Regulation is actually the relationship between the government and market subjects (enterprises and individuals), and the subject and object are completely independent. Finally, from the point of view of means, the administration can rely on (subjective) administrative orders to directly control subordinate (subordinate) units; Regulation mainly relies on (objective) laws to regulate and constrain economically and legally independent market entities. Although many domestic and foreign scholars have different definitions of regulation, it is not difficult to find that regulation has at least the following components: (1) The subject of control (regulator) is the government administrative organ (referred to as the government), and the regulator is granted control power through legislation or other forms. (2) The objects of control (the regulated persons) are various economic agents (mainly enterprises). (3) The main basis and means of control are various regulations (or systems), which clearly stipulate what decisions to restrict the regulated person, how to restrict it, and the sanctions that the regulated person will receive if it violates the law. According to these three basic elements, control can be defined as: a series of administrative management and supervision acts taken by relatively independent regulators (institutions) with legal status against the regulated persons (mainly enterprises) in accordance with certain laws and regulations. Since the subject of regulation is the government, regulation is also called government regulation. Regulatory economics is an emerging discipline. Although before the 70s of the 20th century, many scholars in economically developed countries published many works on price control, investment control, entry control, food and drug control, antitrust control, etc., these works each conducted research on specific objects in a small field and lacked interconnection; Moreover, the use of economic principles to study government regulation is even rarer. In the 70s of the 20th century, some scholars began to pay attention to the study of government regulation from the perspective of economics, and tried to systematize the existing research results, thus initially producing regulatory economics. Among them, classic papers such as "Economic Regulation Theory" published by American economist Stigler have had a particularly important impact on the formation of regulatory economics. Since the 80s of the 20th century, economically developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan have carried out major reforms in the government control system of some monopoly industries, and strengthened the control of environmental protection, product quality and safety, and health and health. All these provide rich empirical data for the study of regulatory economics, thereby promoting the development of regulatory economics. The research content of government regulation is relatively extensive, but it can be roughly summarized into three major areas: economic regulation, social regulation and anti-monopoly control. Among them, the field of economic regulation mainly includes those industries with natural monopoly and serious information asymmetry, and its typical industries include cable communications, electric power, railway transportation, urban tap water and sewage treatment, pipeline gas, finance and insurance and other industries. The content of social control is very rich, usually social control can be divided into three aspects of health, safety and environmental protection, so social control can be referred to as HSE control (Health, Safety and Environmental Regulation). Anti-monopoly control is a relatively independent research field, which mainly studies various anti-competitive behaviors of enterprises with market monopoly power in competitive fields, mainly including collusion, mergers and acquisitions and abuse of dominant position. Regulatory economics is an applied and marginal discipline that studies the scientific nature of government regulation based on economic principles. From the perspective of the process of the emergence and development of regulatory economics, it is produced and developed due to the needs of practice, and its theoretical research is closely combined with the actual economic reality, providing theoretical basis and empirical data for the government to formulate and implement regulatory policies, and its research has obvious policy-oriented nature, showing the nature of applied disciplines. At the same time, regulatory economics involves economic, political, legal, administrative and other aspects, which determines that regulatory economics is a marginal discipline. Economics is the basic discipline of regulatory economics. This is because regulatory economics not only studies the demand and supply of government regulation itself, including demand intensity and supply capacity, but also analyzes the costs and benefits of government regulation, and determines the necessity of a government regulation through the comparison of costs and benefits. At the same time, the formulation and implementation of regulatory policies should also be based on economic principles, such as the core content of economic control is entry control and price control, and the formulation and implementation of entry control policies should be based on economic theories such as economies of scale, scope economy, monopoly and competition, so as to form an effective competition pattern compatible with economies of scale and competitive vitality in specific industries or fields; The formulation of price control policies is mainly based on economic theories such as cost and benefit, demand and supply. For each social control activity, economic principles should be applied, cost and benefit analysis should be carried out, and the feasibility and economic rationality of the regulatory activity should be demonstrated. There is a direct link between administrative science and regulatory economics. Because the basic means of control are administrative means, the regulator can compel the regulated persons to implement the relevant laws and regulations in accordance with the law and exercise administrative supervision over them. However, any regulatory activity must be carried out in accordance with the administrative procedures established by law in order to avoid arbitrariness in the control activity. This determines that regulatory economics needs to use the basic theories and methods of administrative management to improve the scientific nature and efficiency of control. Political science is a discipline closely related to regulatory economics, in a sense, regulatory behavior itself is a political behavior, the formulation and implementation of any regulatory policy reflects the political tendency of governments at all levels, and contains political factors to a considerable extent. In fact, regulation has always been an important part of the study of political science in developed countries, and regulation is a political process related to politicians seeking political ends. Law and regulatory economics are also closely related. This is because the regulator must have a certain legal authority, acquire legal status, and clarify its powers and responsibilities; At the same time, the basic basis of control is the relevant legal provisions and administrative procedures, and the actions of the regulatory bodies should be subject to legal supervision and judicial control. This makes it necessary for regulatory economics to be linked to jurisprudence. Management and regulatory economics are also more related. There is usually a serious information asymmetry between the regulator and the regulated, and how the regulator guides the regulated person to take behavior conducive to the public interest as much as possible, which is a complex multiple game process, requiring the regulator to master management knowledge and have strong management ability. This marginal disciplinary nature of regulatory economics requires scholars to conduct interdisciplinary collaborative research. In fact, developed countries conduct multi-dimensional research on government regulation from a multidisciplinary perspective, and emphasize interdisciplinary research. According to the information available to the author, the earliest work on China's regulatory economy is Stigler's Industrial Organization and Government Regulation (translated by Pan Zhenmin, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 1989), in which four papers are on government regulation. Subsequently, he published Microregulatory Economics (translated by Zhu Shaowen, Hu Xinxin and others, China Development Press, 1992) by Japanese scholar Uekusa, which was the first monograph introduced to China devoted to the regulated economy and had a great influence in China. Since the 90s of the 20th century, domestic scholars have published many works on the basis of learning from foreign regulatory economics and combining with China's actual conditions, laying the foundation for the formation and development of regulatory economics in China. However, on the whole, China's research on regulatory economics is still in its infancy, and in many aspects it needs to be studied in depth in light of China's actual conditions. Under the planned economic system, China does not have the regulatory problems mentioned in modern regulatory economics, and planning cannot be understood as regulation, and the planned economic system cannot be understood as a traditional regulatory system. Because the market is a substitute for planning, and regulation is a correction and complement to market failures. Control is a special administrative management and supervision act carried out by a regulatory entity authorized by law on the subject of control in accordance with certain laws and regulations. Control is different from general administration and even more different from planning. Otherwise, there would be no need to discuss the development of regulatory economics in China, and there would be no need to discuss how to establish an efficient regulatory system through reform. From the perspective of international experience, as far as monopoly industries are concerned, a few developed countries such as the United States mainly use private enterprises as the main body of operation. Britain, Japan and most European countries have long implemented the system of monopoly operation of state-owned enterprises for monopoly industries, and only in the 80s of the 20th century began to implement major reforms to promote competition and privatization of monopoly industries, and in the process of reform, a modern control system was gradually established. As a country in transition from a planned economy to a market economy, government control is a government function that has been continuously strengthened in the process of establishing and improving the socialist market economy system. Traditional economic theory holds that natural monopoly industries, public utilities and other basic industries are areas of market failure, and the market competition mechanism cannot play a role, and advocates that state-owned enterprises directly implement monopoly operation to solve the problem of market failure. In practice, for a long time, China has implemented a management system of direct government operation for these basic industries. However, the new economic theory and practice prove that the monopoly operation of state-owned enterprises will inevitably lead to low efficiency, and emphasize the positive role of competition mechanism in these industries. Therefore, since the 90s of the 20th century, China, like many countries in the world, has gradually implemented two major reforms in these industries: one is to introduce and strengthen the competition mechanism to achieve effective competition; The second is to actively promote privatization, and a certain number of private enterprises have become the main operators of these industries, and the main body of mixed ownership has been formed in these industries to meet the needs of the market economic system. In this way, the government cannot manage mixed-ownership enterprises or private enterprises with a certain degree of competition in the same way as monopoly state-owned enterprises in the past, but must carry out the transformation of government functions and establish a new government control system in order to effectively control these industries. At the same time, on the basis of economic development, China has increasingly emphasized the regulation of environmental protection, health and workplace safety. All of this has led to a trend towards the strengthening of government regulatory functions. To this end, the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that the four basic functions of the government are: economic regulation, market supervision, social management and public services, and for the first time market supervision (government regulation) is regarded as an important government function. Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics is the earliest institution of higher learning in China to systematically study government regulation economics, and has undertaken more than 20 national major science and technology special projects, more than 20 projects of the National Social Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, more than 50 provincial and ministerial research projects in the field of government regulation, and has published more than 30 academic works in the field of government regulation, and published a number of high-quality academic papers in journals such as Economic Research, among which some achievements have won the "Sun Yefang Economic Science Book Award", "Xue Xiqiao Price Research Award", " Outstanding Achievement Award in Scientific Research of Colleges and Universities (Humanities and Social Sciences)", etc. The school has formed a research team with reasonable structure, high comprehensive quality and strong research ability. In order to meet the needs of government regulatory economics research and better serve the government's formulation and implementation of regulatory policies, the school has established an interdisciplinary Institute of Government Regulation of Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, including the Research Center for Government Regulation and Public Policy (Zhejiang Provincial Key Research Base of Social Sciences), the Research and Innovation Team of Regulation Theory and Policy (Zhejiang Key Innovation Team), and the Institute of Public Utility Regulation Policy (a cooperative research institution between the University and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development). The main research directions of the Institute of Government Regulation include: basic theory of government regulation, monopoly industry regulation theory and policy research, urban public utilities government regulation theory and policy research, social regulation theory and policy research, anti-monopoly control theory and policy research, financial risk supervision theory and policy research, government regulation performance evaluation theory and policy research, etc. In order to systematically publish the academic works of school teachers in the field of government control, with the strong support of China Social Sciences Press, we will continue to publish the "Government Regulation Research Series Library", which is also the window and platform for the school to carry out academic exchanges with the outside world. Experts, scholars and readers are welcome to criticize and correct the academic works in the library. Wang Junhao in Hangzhou in January 2012（AI翻译）