Measuring the impact of regulation

The rule of more

Rule-making is being made to look more beneficial under Barack Obama

See article

Readers' comments




"If consumers were really better off with more efficient cars or appliances, they would buy them without a prod from government. The fact that they don’t means they put little value on money saved in the future, or simply prefer other features more." This is a non-sequiter. Applied to retirement plans, it would read "If consumers were really better off putting money towards retirement, they would put money in their retirement accounts with little prodding. The fact that they don't means they don't value retirement plans." People ARE better off not spending more over the long term just as much as they are better off saving for retirement. Just because people don't VALUE the benefits doesn't mean they aren't better off.


"Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project, a liberal-leaning research group, thinks that could be done through the creation of a non-partisan congressional oversight body using the best evidence available to vet regulations, much as the Congressional Budget Office vets fiscal policy. It would also re-evaluate old regulations to see if the original analysis behind them was still valid."

Long, long overdue.


This is government by fiat. That is the way these people like it. The democratic process of convincing elected officials to vote for these things in the interest of their constituents is not adequate in the minds of these people. It is too slow, it is too protracted, and it may not yield the results these bureaucrats deem appropriate for the general population.


I think the cost-benefit analysts for much of this stuff must live in another universe. If we're talking economics why put a positive monetary value on everyone's life? Every terminal disease comes with a tag that says 'The bearer of this illness will positively make no further claims for the cost of health care from the state or any other source. He/She will cost nothing in the future for social care and will not receive any future pension or similar emoluments.' Unless the deceased was economically active that sounds like an economic plus to me (unless of course you're in the medical business).
If environmental improvements bring such economic benefits why is the ageing of the population, largely brought about by environmental improvement, an economic problem?

Surely the attempts to quantify in monetary terms undoubted enhancements to the quality of life are just bogus, and it shouldn't be surprising that you can make them out to be whatever you want.
I suspect that most people would think that a $10 billion benefit would make them a bit better off financially, which may not be the case at all, so perhaps the primary purpose is just to bamboozle the public... and are these quantified 'benefits' then used as an excuse for the government to borrow more money...?


Co-benefits and private benefits, though not direct, are real benefits. As long as you are not double counting these benefits as coming from another direct regulation, it makes sense to include them. If I were to select between two options, the first with higher direct net benefits (direct benefits - costs) and the second with higher net total (direct + private + co-benefits - costs), I would select the latter.

The origin of your argument comes from Susan Dudley's paper. She is a conservative academic; I am not surprised at the views her paper conveys. I am, however, surprised at the one-sided views conveyed in your article.

9faLQUDV2V in reply to outsidethebox

It's not based on a lie, the full explanation of benefits is publicly available information. Co-benefits ARE real benefits and were included in cost-benefit analysis under the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The article's main point is that the Obama administration is calculating co-benefits differently from previous administrations. It acknowledges that political incentives may make Obama's somewhat overstated - just as Bush's were understated. We need to find a standardized method of calculating such benefits, rather than brand every administration as liars for including them.


Some of the posts seem to justify the belief that the government knows what is good for you - better than you yourself would. If so, why don't we all sit by our phones waiting for instructions from federal bureaucrats?

Capn Fowl

"The minutiae of how regulators calculate benefits may seem arcane, but matters a lot." I do hate being pedantic, but The Economist is respected in large part because The Economist Style Guide convinces many of us there's erudition behind the commentary. Minutiae is a great word, but it's plural; they matter, rather than "matters."

Jan Go

Precise and trustworthy cost-benefit analyses must be preferred of course; yet there exist techniques to contain the cost of regulatory change (and improve the quality of the impact assessments), as illustrated in the paper 'A Multi-Level Model-Driven Regime for Value-Added Tax Compliance in ERP Systems' ( ).

Such techniques matter globally. Just mind the national legislations (with in addition many compliance commitments to international treaties). The extent of the challenge each country is facing is transparent from the US Code list, with treaties underneath, at

Yukon Dave

Lets keep it real here folks. A government body justifying doing something using soft costs and indirect value system is almost comical. Down the slippery slope and off the cliff. At some point the legislation actually makes money for everyone.


Let's assume for a moment all facts as presented in the article are true. The lives saved will not actually be caused by mercury reduction. How typical of this administration. Even the good they do is always, always based on a lie. You know they could have told the truth about how those lives would have been saved. But it just wasn't in their nature.

Southern Lawyer in reply to bampbs

I agree.

Regulation is extremely difficult to get right, and the odds of not screwing it up go up when you have experts conducting rigorous independent analyses to see if regulations match up with expectations. In other words, it's not a job for Congress. And that's not legislature bashing--they have way too much on their plates to be monitors of every SEC or EPA commandment, and it's not feasible to train them to be experts in a number of disparate fields. Delegating to experts in their fields may not be perfect, but it's as best as we can get.


Rule making” has two purposes: 1) it is for power assertion, and 2) it is for holding at bay our free flow development. However, we have to blame ourselves for this by disobeying the three laws of the universe. For your information Google “The World Monetary Order”.

teacup775 in reply to Eliphas

Ah but economists model the behavior of homo economus, a purely rational optimizing creature who has been extensively researched by actual field and labratory behavioral tests on existing populations.

Oh wait we're talkng about people.

What about Bob

"...through the creation of a non-partisan congressional oversight body using the best evidence available to vet regulations, much as the Congressional Budget Office vets fiscal policy."

So, just like the CBO must seriously consider everything congress puts forward, say for example that the US will earn $1 trillion from gold mines on Mars, then this new "non-partisan congressional oversight body" will be used for partisan purposes just as much and have many numbers and figures based upon equally ungrounded claims?


Journals Warned to Keep a Tight Lid on Diesel Exposure Data
by Sam Kean on 17 February 2012, 2:46 PM

A protracted legal battle over an $11.5-million health study into whether diesel exhaust damages the lungs of miners has suddenly widened to take on scientific peer review. Editors with at least four research publications say they have received a letter advising them against "publication or other distribution" of data and draft documents. The warning, including a vague statement about "consequences" that could ensue if the advice is ignored, is signed by Henry Chajet, an attorney at the Patton Boggs firm in Washington, D.C., and a lobbyist for the Mining Awareness Resource Group, which works on behalf of the mining industry.


Surprisingly to many people, it is primarily private enterprises who demand regulation - aiming market-entry-conditions (e.g. by public offer-rules, produt standardisation)or clear gaming rules (again public offer-rules, civil law) or stable social conditions.
It is usualy the managers at lower hierarchy levels who claim against regulation.
no matter where - China, EU or US


I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who wants to put himself out of a job. Or one incapable of twisting the facts beyond any recognition to justify their existence.

Alas, bureaucracy and red tape are directly proportional to reduced and economic prosperity. Just ask any Californian.


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