The role of agency and regulation in economic and social processes

This issue of the International Review of Applied Economics contains several papers which explore the way in which the participation of people – as citizens and employees – can and does impact economic and social life, along with the role of regulation. In ‘The heterogeneity of residents’ preference over a wide array of services, provided by a master planned community’, James Yoo and Julianna Browning report on the preferences of residents for various amenities within their neighbourhoods, and on how these may vary between different sections of the community. In ‘The quotas law for people with disabilities in Brazil: is it a guarantee of employment?’, Ana Cléssia Pereira Lima de Araújo, Maria Analice D. Santos Sampaio, Edward Martins Costa, Ahmad Saeed Khan, Guilherme Irffi and Rayssa Alexandre Costa find that by 2016, the effects of establishing legal employment quotas for people with disabilities in Brazil were positive for firms employing between 100 and 500 workers. This demonstrates the importance of such regulatory activity, although in practice the effect across countries over time will depend on the action of people actually enforcing the regulations – including both the regulatory authorities themselves, which requires that they be adequately resourced, and employees, often through trade union involvement.