We use the classical model of structured expert judgment to examine the return on investment (ROI) in a health surveillance network. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (Tracking Program) in 2002 to collect available data to...

Since the early 1990s, the validity of the Porter Hypothesis has been the focus of intense research efforts to establish whether well-designed environmental regulation may enhance – rather than reduce – competitiveness. However, little consensus exists on the extent to which (if at all)...

Consumer protection and financial regulatory agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulate various types of consumer, investor and financial frauds. Whether required or not,...

This paper examines the role of privatization on the cost of government-provided services. We examine data on the cost of housing public and private prisoners from all 50 states over the time period 1996-2004, and find that the existence of private prisons in a state reduces the growth in per...

This paper explores the legal and economic theories, and empirical evidence of government-imposed punishment for corporate wrongdoing. Among the questions addressed are: What is the purpose of corporate criminal law? How are sanctions to be determined? When should firms versus individuals be...

Twenty years ago, Harvard Business School economist and strategy professor Michael Porter stood conventional wisdom about the impact of environmental regulation on business on its head by declaring that well-designed regulation could actually enhance competitiveness. The traditional view of...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for understanding how analysis of costs and benefits might be incorporated into an assessment of regulatory policies affecting deepwater drilling. We begin by providing a framework for analyzing the life-cycle impacts of oil drilling...

Carbon labeling has been proposed as a way to fill gaps in governmental efforts to reduce the impact of human activity on global climate. Carbon labels can provide information that allows producers and consumers to develop and choose lower-impact products, but they have not become widespread in...

The paper provides new insights into the productivity of teams and the relationship between the inspector and the inspected party. Exploiting exogenous variation in the number of inspectors that are sent to offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, we find that adding an inspector...

This paper estimates the cost of wrongful convictions and the time spent in prison based on a cross sectional regression analysis of awards and settlements for individuals who were wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Key variables of interest are number of days...