Discipline: Economics
Regulation refers to governmental control over economic affairs, usually in order to ensure stability or protect consumers.
Regulation is often a response to the abuses of monopolies and price-fixing.
Also see: deregulation, economic liberalism, laissez-faire, mercantilism, new classical macroeconomics, physiocracy
Source:
M A Utton, The Economics of Regulating Industry (Oxford, 1986)