On the need for digital regulators

Cary Coglianese

Chapter 2 in Research Handbook on Digital Regulatory Agencies, 2026, pp 8-27 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The growing digital economy brings increasing recognition of the need for digital regulators. This chapter considers two senses of the term “digital regulators”: one of these refers to regulators of digital technology; the other refers to how any regulatory organization can improve its operations with the use of digital technology. Today's economy requires digital regulators of both types. The need for regulators of digital technology grows out of perennial concerns about market failures and other implicated social values, such as privacy. This chapter outlines the rationales that in the past have justified regulating digital technology, and then it explains how market-failure justifications continue to reveal a need for regulating today's rapidly evolving digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. The chapter then shows how the need for regulators with digital technology has been evident since the advent of the internet and has grown even more compelling today with the possibilities created by artificial intelligence. One common thread from the past through to today is the need for regulators both to oversee digital technologies and to use these technologies to improve their regulatory performance.

Keywords: Regulation; Digital Technology; Telecommunications; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Regulatory Performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035330881
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035330898.00009 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23237_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().