Commentaries & Insights

Our Commentaries and Insights are short-form publications intended to distill long-form research and synthesize current policymaking activity into easily understood concepts.


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.

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.

Review Necessary to Ensure FDA’s Food Transport Rule Actually Drives Results

On February 5, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a proposed rule regarding the Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food, which it hopes will help to ensure that food will not become contaminated during the transportation process.

Going Global

A shift to a global benefit-cost perspective requires a much more rigorous and balanced evaluative structure.

OMB: Both Costs and Benefits of New Regulations Down in FY 2013

The Report indicates that the new regulations issued in FY 2013 involve lower annual costs and benefits than in FY 2012.

Spring 2014 Unified Agenda

OMB released its Spring 2014 Unified Agenda listing ongoing and upcoming regulations planned by agencies.