The public interest postulates that regulation is undertaken to overcome market failures, so to ensure that the economic system operates in a manner consistent with the public interest (see Section 12-2). By contrast, the economic theory of regulation expounded by Stigler and others postulates that regulation is the result of pressure-group action results in laws and policies that restrict competition and promote the interest of the firms that they are supposed to regulate (this is the capture theory discussed in Section12-1).