Shining a Light on Regulatory Costs
Publications
The GW Regulatory Studies Center scholars regularly conduct applied research to understand regulatory policy and practice from a public interest perspective. Our content often takes the form of public interest comments, formal testimony, working papers, policy insights, and short commentaries analyzing the most pressing issues in regulatory policy. View the rest of our material by the different types of publications listed on this page or our research areas.
What We Publish
Journal Articles & Working Papers
Long-form publications intended for academic audiences that take a deep dive into a particular aspect of regulatory policy.
Public Comments & Testimonies
Scholarly analysis of the potential effects of particular rulemakings from federal agencies, and advice to Congress on how to improve the rulemaking process.
Commentaries & Insights
Short-form publications intended for all audiences which provide easy to access analysis of regulatory policy.
Books & Reports
Formal publications, often completed with other leading organizations and individuals, providing a thorough understanding of regulations and the rulemaking process.
Newsletters
The weekly Regulation Digest contains everything you need to know about regulatory policy today, and our monthly Center Update gives you all of the latest from our team.
For accessible charts and supporting data that you can use in your own publications or presentations, visit the Reg Stats page.
Latest Publications
Consumer’s Guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis
Regulatory impact analyses (RIAs) weigh the benefits of regulations against the burdens they impose and are invaluable tools for informing decision makers. We offer 10 tips for nonspecialist policymakers and interested stakeholders who will be reading RIAs as consumers.
Spinning Out of Control: The Hidden Costs of Appliance Efficiency Standards
In a recent presentation, Art Fraas and Sofie Miller used data on appliance defects from class action lawsuits to identify regulations that are ripe for review.
Examining How Small Businesses Confront and Shape Regulations
Prepared Statement for the Record for the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship hearing on "Examining How Small Businesses Confront and Shape Regulations."
Is Consultation the New Normal?: Online Policymaking and Governance Reform in China
Governance reform has emerged as an element of the Chinese Communist Party’s development strategy in the era of the “new normal.” This article examines the implementation of online consultation, a prominent instrument of governance reform—institutionalized under Hu Jintao and championed by Xi Jinping—in which officials provide interested parties with opportunities to offer feedback on proposed public policies.
Retrospective Evaluation of Chemical Regulations
Ex-ante regulatory impact assessment has a long tradition in many OECD countries, with established analytical steps and oversight as well as opportunities for public engagement to hold governments accountable for conducting analysis before regulations are issued. But ex-ante analyses necessarily depend on unverifiable assumptions and models of how the world would look absent the regulation, and how responses to regulatory requirements will alter those conditions. This paper attempts to address the challenges to evaluating regulatory outcomes and learning from those evaluations.
Prepared Statement of Susan E. Dudley, U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs hearing on Agency Use of Science in the Rulemaking Process: Proposals for Improving Transparency and Accountability.
Latest Trump Executive Order Provides Guidance on “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda”
Additional clarification provides direction for implementing the Trump administration’s previous orders to reduce regulation