This paper assesses the quality and use of regulatory analysis for economically significant regulations produced by federal agencies in 2008. A nine-member research team used a six-point (0-5) scale to evaluate regulatory analyses according to criteria drawn from Executive Order 12866 on...

Despite evidence to the contrary, three common myths persist about federal regulations. The first myth is that many regulations concern the environment, but in fact only a small minority of regulations are environmental. By some measures, the flow of new health regulation alone since the year...

As the COVID-19 crisis intensified, policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels started suspending or rescinding laws and regulations that hindered sensible, speedy responses to the pandemic. These “rule departures” raised many questions. Were the paused rules undermining public...

The federal regulation and state enterprise (“FRASE”) index ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to how federal regulations affect each state's economy. Over the past 80 years, the federal government has increasingly relied on regulations as its primary legal output....

Americans expect federal regulation to accomplish many important things, such as protecting the country from financial fraudsters, preventing workplace injuries, preserving clean air, and deterring terrorist attacks. Regulation also requires tradeoffs—there is no such thing as a free lunch....

Excessive regulatory accumulation has long been a concern of policymakers, and over the past 40 years, many presidents and members of Congress have taken steps to address this issue. Every recent president beginning with Carter issued or reaffirmed executive orders that set requirements for...

The problem of regulatory accumulation has increasingly been recognized as a policy problem in its own right. Governments have then devised and implemented regulatory reform policies that directly seek to ameliorate the burdens of regulatory accumulation (e.g. red tape reduction targets). In...

We investigate whether regulatory growth disproportionately burdens small businesses relative to large businesses. Using panel data from RegData 3.0 and exploiting variation across industries over time, we empirically estimate the relationship between regulatory growth and growth in the number...

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....