Regulation articles from December 2003

Regulation archives from December 2003

Conserving water.(Mercatus Reports)
December 22, 2003... STATUS: EPA policy under revision. Convincing people to conserve water can be a challenge for government planners. The Department of Energy's mandate for water-efficient, low-flow toilets has not proven very popular with users, who...

An ocean Czar?(Mercatus Reports)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... STATUS: Ocean policy recommendations to be released in late 2003. In advance of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's release late this year of recommendations for ocean policy reform, the Pew Charitable Trusts established its own ocean...

Peering at regulatory science.(Mercatus Reports)
December 22, 2003... STATUS: OMB has issued draft guidelines for comment. The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy have proposed a set of peer-review guidelines for the science that federal agencies use to make...

Regulation and free enterprise around the globe.(Mercatus Reports)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... STATUS: World Bank releases new report. The World Bank released a new report in October entitled "Doing Business in 2004: Understanding Regulation." The report examines in a systematic fashion how regulation and legal systems affect...

The Endangered Species Act turns 30.(Mercatus reports: commentary)
December 22, 2003... ON DECEMBER 28, THE ENDANGERED Species Act (ESA) turns 30. One of the biggest controversies over the ESA has been its effect on private property. Many analysts suggest that the act's restrictions on property rights actually discourage...

The new farm economy: the agriculture industry has entered the 21st century; perhaps farm policy will do so as well.(Agriculture)
December 22, 2003... THE U.S. FARM ECONOMY HAS UNDERGONE profound changes in market organization. A wave of consolidation has shifted a larger share of agricultural production to big, low-cost producers. Moreover, new forms of ownership and control that link the...

Following the herd: why do some ideas suddenly become popular, and then die out just as quickly?(Theory)
December 22, 2003... WHY DO CERTAIN IDEAS AND philosophies suddenly become en vogue in society, and then just as quickly fall out of favor? Consider, for example, all of the different management fads that have come and gone in the past few decades: management by...

The legacy of U.S. v. Microsoft: do advances in economic theory lead to advances in legal practice?(Antitrust)
December 22, 2003... MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT U.S. v. Microsoft, as either the last "case of the century" for the 20th century or the first for the 21st. As one might expect for a still-pursued case that has been litigated in the United States and Europe for...

Politics and the business corporation: do politicians want donations more than corporations want to give them?(Campaign Finance)
December 22, 2003... THE TILLMAN ACT OF 1907 MADE IT A crime for corporations to give financial "contributions" to federal political candidates. Today, the act bars not only direct "contributions" to a candidate's campaign, but also "independent expenditures" that...

Regulation and the marketplace: does government regulation offer any better protection to market participants than private assurance?(Regulatory Reform)
December 22, 2003... ADAM SMITH LAID THE FOUNDATION for modern economic theory by positing that the self-interest of the merchant is the major force leading to good business practice. That fundamental idea has been elaborated to understand better how merchants...

Evaluating transfer regulations: routine use of cost-effectiveness analysis could dramatically improve transfer programs' effectiveness while saving taxpayers' money.(Regulatory Reform)
December 22, 2003... WHEN A FEDERAL REGULATOry agency issues a major regulation, the agency usually must provide a cost-benefit analysis that shows the monetized benefits of the regulation exceed the cost it imposes on industry. There has been much debate about...

Federalism and regulation: what sorts of regulation are best handled on the federal level?(Regulatory Reform)
December 22, 2003... ECONOMISTS GENERALLY AGREE ABOUT the role of regulation in modern market economies: If there is no significant "market failure," then government should not intervene. If the failure is substantial, and there is good reason to believe that...

The unsustainability of sustainability.(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... A POVERTY OF REASON: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth by Wilfred Beckerman 130 pp., Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, 2002 AT LEAST SINCE ITS endorsement in a 1987 United Nations report, many people have used the term...

More hot air.(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... RECONSTRUCTING CLIMATE POLICY: Beyond Kyoto By Richard B. Stewart and Jonathan B. Wiener 193 pp., Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2003 WHAT IS IT ABOUT academic economists that makes them salivate like mists that makes them salivate like...

Bad news sells.(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... ARE CHILDREN MORE VULNERABLE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICALS? Scientific and Regulatory Issues in Perspective Edited by Doland R. Juberg 219 pp., New York, N.Y.: American Council on Science and Health, 2003 A SERIES OF TV ADS BY A group of...

Dubya's happy message to me.(The Final Word)
December 22, 2003... IS IT CRAZY TO THINK THAT GEORGE W. BUSH, president of the United States of America, has started to suck up to me, Penn Jillette, wackjob? There's no chance he's starting to slide happy little messages to me in his speeches, right? What's the...