regulation

Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For example: in government, typically regulation (or its plural) refers to the delegated legislation which is adopted to enforce primary legislation; including land-use regulation in economics: regulatory economics in finance: financial regulation in business, industry self-regulation occurs through self-regulatory organizations and trade associations which allow industries to set and enforce rules with less government involvement; and, in biology, gene regulation and metabolic regulation allow living organisms to adapt to their environment and maintain homeostasis; in psychology, self-regulation theory is the study of how individuals regulate their thoughts and behaviors to reach goals.

== Forms == Regulation in the social, political, psychological, and economic domains can take many forms: legal restrictions promulgated by a government authority, contractual obligations (for example, contracts between insurers and their insureds), self-regulation in psychology, social regulation (e.g. norms), co-regulation, third-party regulation, certification, accreditation or market regulation.