The Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission (MRPC) of 1949–56 ranks as one of the main early regulatory commissions of private economic interests in peace-time Britain. In Britain direct state regulation of an industry, its structure, pricing and practices has generally taken the form either of nationalisation or of specific encouragement to rationalisation, for instance the schemes for industries in the 1930s, such as the Coal Mines Act and the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, the Development Councils of the 1940s and the work of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation in the 1960s. The Monopolies Commission was very different from these experiments, as it was established to survey permanently and continuously the practices of all industrial sectors. In addition it had more in common with the statutory regulatory practices of the United States than with the self-regulation favoured in Britain.

Studies of the work of the Monopolies Commission have extensively analysed the types of decisions made, but are mainly geared to producing prescriptions for reform, or guidelines for future government action. They place the experience of the Monopolies Commission as one chapter in the story of the march towards improved public perceptions of the need to end restrictive practices and make capitalism competitive.

According to American regulation writing, however, either the legislation establishing the agencies is itself the product of the industry's own desire for regulation, or the regulatory commission accommodates itself to the interests of the firms it regulates. One analyst suggests a life-cycle of regulatory commissions: the commission starts by vigorously attempting to regulate the industry in line with its mandate as custodian of the public interest.