Abstract
This chapter limits its attention to short selling of securities. The chapter starts with a brief introduction to the economics of short selling and the basic regulatory strategies. We then describe the current European regulation with brief comparative references to the US regulatory system and look at some general considerations on the scope of the current European regulatory regime, on two recurring topics considered of particular interest by legal doctrine, also in the light of possible reforms. The first topic is the rationality of the European transparency regime between notification to the competent authority and disclosure to the market in terms of the costs of short selling activities, and also considers the relationship between the regulation of short selling and the Market Abuse Regulation. The second topic concerns the issue of the possible reframing of the current European regulatory regime to limit short selling restrictions, because of the several insights coming from empirical finance arguing that bans on short selling have more costs than benefits.