This updated draft paper explores the significant role Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis (RCBA) plays in facilitating or impeding collective action. Through case studies, the paper shows that well-constructed RCBAs have (1) facilitated collective action (including in cases where explicit...

Impact and benefit agreements (IBAs) have become a common part of a standard package of agreements negotiated between an industrial proponent and a representative Aboriginal organization. Among other things, IBAs recognize Aboriginal peoples' interests with the land and parallel more broadly...

In their excellent new book, Retaking Rationality, Richard Revesz and Michael Livermore make a strong case for reforming cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Too often, as they convincingly document, CBA has been identified with an anti-regulatory agenda rather than reflecting sound economic analysis -...

The UK's Treasury's "Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change" (Oct. 2006) reached dramatically different conclusions and policy recommendations than most earlier economic analyses of climate change. It found that the costs of climate change, as well as the potential net benefits of...

The UK's Treasury's "Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change" (Oct. 2006) reached dramatically different conclusions and policy recommendations than most earlier economic analyses of climate change. It found that the costs of climate change, as well as the potential net benefits of...

We use FDA's seafood inspection records to examine: (i) how FDA has targeted its inspections under HACCP regulation; (ii) the effects of FDA inspections on compliance with both HACCP and plant sanitation standards; and (iii) the relationship between HACCP regulations and pre-existing sanitation...

Without participation of the United States, the world?s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, mitigation of global climate change seems hardly conceivable. Despite the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and the reluctance of the Bush administration to engage in Post-Kyoto negotiations, recent...

We consider the effect of legal access to alcohol, which is known to increase drinking behavior, on academic performance. We first estimate the effect using an RD design but argue that this approach is not well-suited to the research question in our setting. Our preferred approach instead...

Due to Federal regulations, automobile air bag availability was a model-specific discontinuous function of model year for used vehicles in the 1990s and early 2000s. We use these discontinuities and the gradual increase in the supply of air bags to trace out the demand curve for air bags and the...

In the environmental area, negotiated rulemaking, implementation, and compliance are proposed by their advocates as delivering two primary benefits: reduced rulemaking time and decreased litigation over a final agency rule. The experience to date, however, indicates that negotiated rulemaking...