Although regulatory competition has been hailed in some quarters as a
superior alternative to Council-driven harmonization, little empirical
investigation has been carried out to demonstrate how regulatory comp
etition might work in actual EC practice, and therefore whether its ex
pected benefits will, in fact, materialize. We construct a framework s
tylizing the iterative process of regulatory competition, and illumina
te its emergence from five elements of the regulatory strategy of the
EC-1992 internal market programme. The framework presented shows that
the process of regulatory competition is a complex and unpredictable o
ne. Two case studies are provided to exemplify the difficulties. These
practical limitations severely weaken the case for regulatory competi
tion based on theoretical economic arguments. Moreover, a comparative
cost-benefit analysis of regulatory competition and harmonization sugg
ests that, where relevant, regulatory competition and harmonization sh
ould be seen as complements, rather than substitutes. The demarcation
between the two is best determined on a case-by-case basis according t
o the principle of subsidiarity.