Why have advanced democracies experienced a retreat of the interventionist state since 1980? This article provides evidence that in all relevant policy indicators (spending, subsidies, state-owned enterprises, regulation, capital taxation) government intervention has been scaled back across the OECD. An overview of the results of 130 quantitative studies analysing at least one of these indicators is provided. Focusing on five main explanatory variables – globalization, Europeanization, learning and emulation, socio-economic problems, and political parties – only limited agreement in the literature is found. The reasons for this disagreement are discussed. Ways forward are suggested for the theoretical models on which studies are based, how the dependent variable is chosen, the empirical approaches that may be applied, and how quantitative research and comparative case studies may be combined.

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The article addresses the question of how successful the European natural gas reforms of 1998, 2003, and 2009 have been in terms of increasing competition in the sector. We argue that regulatory provisions are policy output variables, which as such do not affect competition directly. However, successful reforms can have an impact on the market structure, which might lead to increased competition and price reductions. Thus, it is pivotal to differentiate between policy output and outcome variables. Therefore, we first conduct a cross-sectional analysis of the regulatory impact on the market structure. Second, we apply error-correction models to test whether changes in the market structure affected the price development. Our findings suggest that the market reforms were successful in terms of liberalizing the sector, whereas the market structure did not affect the natural gas prices. Thus, we see a "successful failure" of the European natural gas market reforms.

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