Rating systems for the regulation of television programs currently address parents, advising them of the presence of content considered inappropriate for children so that they can screen what their children watch. However, today’s children increasingly choose television content on their own, as parental supervision is consistently declining. This essay argues that the existing regulatory regime for rating television content is unsuited to the present-day viewing styles of youngsters, and presents policy recommendations.

Should the government engage in public shaming? This Article is the first to define and explore an intriguing practice—“regulatory shaming.” Regulatory shaming refers to the publication of negative information by administrative agencies concerning private regulated bodies, mostly corporations, in order to further public-interest goals. For instance, regulatory agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration send out condemning press releases and use social media to publish workplace safety violations with the names of responsible companies, while the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the Food and Drug Administration shame companies for high internal pay gaps and for blocking competition in the pharmaceutical industry. The United States Department of Health and Human Services rates nursing homes on a one to five star scale, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency assigns color ratings to factories according to level of compliance with environmental regulation. 

The FDA recently published a list of top branded drug companies that are suspected of purposely blocking competition from the generic drug industry. Calling out big pharma by “naming and shaming” them into good behavior is an innovative, still largely experimental, regulatory tool designed to harness public opinion and build on pharma’s reputational sensitivities. This Essay analyzes the FDA’s new initiative as a form of regulation by shaming, points to crucial flaws in the agency’s use of the tactic, and suggests key points for improvement.

Bailouts have become a pervasive phenomenon, particularly around the 2008 global financial crisis, as states came to the rescue of financial institutions considered Too Big to Fail (TBTF) faced with imminent bankruptcy. While TBTF bailouts are officially designed to prevent catastrophic domino effects in markets, critics view these bailouts as a result of industry manipulations of regulators and state officials, leading to regulatory capture.  While the phenomenon of regulatory capture by large and resourceful firms is well researched by economists, jurists, and political scientists, a new unexplained phenomenon, yet to be addressed in academic literature, is emerging in modern economies: the bailout of small firms. 

In 2016, the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) delivered its most influential ruling on administrative regulation to date. Following the biggest natural gas discoveries in Israeli history, by a group of multinational energy corporations, the court was requested to rule on the legality of a contractual regulatory arrangement made between these corporations and the government of Israel. In this ruling (HCJ 4374/15 The Movement for Quality of Government v. The Prime Minister of Israel (2016)), five Supreme Court judges discussed extensively, and for the first time in this magnitude, the regulatory functions of Israel’s administrative authorities.