The Mercatus Center at George Mason University initiated its Regulatory Report Card project in 2009 to assess how well executive branch regulatory agencies conduct and use regulatory impact analysis and to identify ways to motivate improvement. Report Card evaluations reveal that agencies often...

When Congress passes legislation that mandates prescriptive regulations, legislators are under no obligation to understand the problem they are trying to solve, assess alternative solutions, or understand the benefits and costs of their choices. Passage of the positive train control mandate in...

Regulatory agencies often produce mediocre economic analysis to accompany major regulations, and they often fail to explain how the analysis influenced their decisions. One reasonable hypothesis for this deficiency is that the enforcement mechanism review within the executive branch by OIRA is...

As the quantity and scope of regulations in Florida grow, so does the degree to which they affect the economy. In these circumstances, a little reform to the process of creating regulations can go a long way toward crafting an environment that fosters competitiveness and economic efficiency....

Independent regulatory agencies face increasing pressure to conduct high-quality economic analysis of regulations, similar to the regulatory impact analysis conducted by executive branch agencies. Such analysis could be required by evolving judicial doctrines, regulatory reform statutes, or...

Federal appeals courts have vacated several Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules due to inadequate economic analysis. The SEC, pledging to do better, published staff economic analysis guidance in March 2012 that covers many of the same topics executive branch agencies address in...