The impact of regulatory policy on individual behaviour: a goal framing theory approach

This paper presents a theoretical framework for analysing regulatees' responses to behavioural expectations set for them in public regulation. It identifies the main variables and mechanisms through which regulatory policy may influence individual choices. The article builds on Siegwart Lindenberg's goal framing theory. The theoretical argument is supported by an extensive range of examples borrowed from the empirical literature on regulatory compliance. As such, it fills an important lacuna of compliance studies: the absence of a formal theoretical base capable of encompassing the numerous findings of the empirical literature. The theoretical framework also gives a consistent account of the cumulated influence of heterogeneous motives on (non)compliance decisions, and thus provides a better understanding of responses to regulation than there was before.