Improving Causal Inferences in Risk Analysis
All Publications
Drawing Inspiration from James Q. Wilson’s “Bureaucracy”
Few have had as much influence on my development as a researcher as Professor James Q. Wilson.
Regulatory Subsidies: A Primer
Subsidies are a commonplace feature of government programs, and can be found in regulatory programs as well as in budget expenditures and in the tax code. An accurate accounting of regulatory subsidies, accessible to the general public, could improve government regulation by helping to ensure that such subsidies are used only when, and to the degree that, they serve a sound public purpose.
Review of In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive
Aberbach and Rockman draw on more than two decades of research to support their argument that the quality, morale, and responsiveness of presidential appointees and senior civil servants have not declined in the manner suggested by some critics of the bureaucracy.
(Mis)Applications of Behavioral Economics to Regulation
In this paper, Smith evaluates the recent promotion of libertarian paternalism as a viable means of coordinating market activities. In doing so, Smith challenges the notion that “anti-antipaternalism” logically follows from the findings in behavioral economics.
Public Commenting on Federal Agency Regulations
This report, commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), investigates agency practices in soliciting, circulating, and responding to public comments during the federal rulemaking process.
Since the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was enacted in 1946, the technological landscape has changed dramatically, while the basic framework for notice and comment rulemaking has largely gone unchanged. Federal regulators, looking to embrace the benefits of e-Rulemaking, face considerable ambiguity about how established legal requirements apply to the web.
We examine the correlation between federal government activity and the performance of the D.C. area's National Football League team, the Washington Redskins. We find a significantly positive, non-spurious, and robust correlation between the Redskins' winning percentage and the amount of federal government bureaucratic activity as measured by the number of pages in the Federal Register.