Pratt asks "Is Regulation for Sale?" The question should be is there any regulation that does not provide benefits to special groups. As long as democracy enables diffused costs and concentrated benefits to guide legislation, regulation is nothing but a saleable service; that is why it is referred to as rent seeking and rent providing. Moreover, the larger the size of government, the greater the returns to rent seeking. Allocating resources to non-productive activities -- rent seeking -- becomes increasingly a better policy for firms than allocating resources to productive activities.
A case in point is the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill just enacted. It is a full package of benefits to special interests. We should have a look at the bill. In a future post we will.
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