All Publications

  

Interim Final Rules Over Time: A Brief Empirical Analysis

Interim final rules are an exception to the APA requirement that agencies use the notice-and-comment process before finalizing a rulemaking.

New Study Finds Federal Regulation Costs Over $2 Trillion Per Year and Disproportionately Affects Small Businesses

National Association of Manufacturers puts a price tag on regulatory compliance

A Retrospective Review of Regulatory Review Itself

An interesting new paper from the Mercatus Center, “The Legacy of the Council on Wage and Price Stability”,* takes an instructive look back at the origins of centralized review of federal regulations.

Disclosure as a Form of Market-based Regulation

A new working paper seeks to identify the underlying incentive problems that caused the global financial crisis and how they may be resolved.

Bank Disclosure and Incentives

Korok Ray proposes a microeconomic model of a bank that acts as a financial intermediary engaging in maturity transformation.

Administrative Procedures and Political Control of the Bureaucracy

Positive theorists have argued that administrative procedures enhance political control of the bureaucracy, in part by predisposing agencies toward policy choices preferred by legislators' favored constituents. Although this “deck-stacking” argument has been both influential and controversial, few scholars have subjected it to empirical examination. This article assesses the operation of a prominent administrative procedure—the notice and comment process—in the context of Medicare physician payment reform, a fundamental restructuring of the way in which the Medicare program pays for physician services.

How to Improve Retrospective Review and Reduce Regulatory Burdens

In response to a request for information, we filed a comment offering three recommendations to further DOE's retrospective review efforts.

Tight Budgets Constrain Some Regulatory Agencies, but Not All

Each year we examine the President’s proposed Budget of the United States to identify the outlays and staffing devoted to developing and enforcing federal regulations. This “regulators’ budget” report covers agencies whose regulations primarily affect private-sector activities, and expressly excludes budget and staffing associated with regulations that govern taxation, entitlement, procurement, subsidy, and credit functions.