Firstly, the maritime transport industry can be characterized by a highly imperfect information : as such, monitoring is particularly difficult, and the enforcement of "command-and-control" type safety regulations often proves to be ineffective, since it is impossible to control ships at sea for an extensive period of time. Secondly, the participants in this industry generally have a rather risk-seeking behavior : safety is therefore usually considered more as a mere cost than as a way to maintain a ship in good conditions of operation. Thirdly, this industry is international and lacks coordination for the enforcement of safety regulations.

Taking into consideration these difficulties, I will present an analysis emphasizing the links between safety and the economical implications of maritime regulations. This allows us to understand the question of how to design more incitative regulations, which could possibly resolve the problems described above. The effectiveness of enforcing the safety regulations’ could thus be better achieved : 1) through a more adequate mapping of risk bearing and liabilities, which could, in turn, lead to the emergence of incentives that would increase the safety level in the maritime navigation industry, and 2) through the generalization of proper practices in the industry. I hope to demonstrate the importance of incentives to enforce regulations : this implies the necessity of a more important involvement of all the stakeholders of the maritime navigation industry.