Regulation articles from December 2007

Regulation archives from December 2007

Trading, taxes, regulation, or OPEC?(FOR THE RECORD)
December 22, 2007... In "Combating Global Warming" (Fall 2007), Ian Parry and William Pizer of Resources for the Future offer an extensive discussion comparing cap-and-trade with a carbon tax. They end up accepting a combination of the two systems, with a...

Cap this discussion.(FOR THE RECORD)
December 22, 2007... Resources for the Future scholars Ian Perry and William Pizer ask whether a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program would be the better strategy for reducing greenhouse emissions. (Their implicit assumption, of course, is that greenhouse gases...

Markets and global warming.(FOR THE RECORD)
December 22, 2007... The idea that the world, and in particular the United States, must do something to reduce the threat of global warming is now a major source of discussion in the seats of political power. It is generally accepted that some governmental action...

Private securities exchanges.(MERCANTUS REPORTS)
December 22, 2007... Government deregulation may create benefits that manifest themselves long after a reform occurs because deregulation acts as a catalyst for innovation. The recent development of a private securities exchange spearheaded by several financial...

Transparency.(MERCANTUS REPORT)(online information services)
December 22, 2007... If you have ever visited a regulatory agency's website, you know there is much to be desired. There is neither the powerful simplicity of Google nor the robust diversity of a commercial database such as Lexis. Those firms strive to ensure that...

Big banks, not small businesses, benefit from the SBA.(MERCATUS REPORTS: COMMENTARY)
December 22, 2007... Congress created the Small Business Administration in 1953 in part to help small businesses borrow money. Proponents of the new agency argued that banks often failed to make loans to small businesses that, if given the loans, would prosper and...

Philadelphia story.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Environmental Protection Agency)
December 22, 2007... In June 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a further reduction of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone. The original standard was set in the wake of the 1970 Clean Air Act. It has been revised twice...

A gene-splicing contrivance.(BRIEFLY NOTED)
December 22, 2007... "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there would be a shortage of sand," Milton Friedman once quipped. That is certainly true of the international bureaucrats I rubbed elbows with in September during...

Calculating the 'big Kill': CDC estimates of smoking-related deaths do not add up.(RISK)
December 22, 2007... In 1985, the British Medical Association and Health Education Council published The Big Kill, a series of booklets estimating the number of people killed by smoking in England and Wales. Assigning a "precise" number of deaths to a risky...

The Failure of U.S. Organ Procurement Policy: "how many deaths will it take 'til we know that too many people have died?".(HEALTH & MEDICINE)
December 22, 2007... As anyone even vaguely familiar with the organ transplantation industry is keenly aware, there is a severe and longstanding shortage of human organs made available for transplant in both the United States d abroad. Every year for at least the...

The terrible 'ifs': U.S. defense policy makers have adopted the precautionary principle.(DEFENSE)
December 22, 2007... The United States employs a version of the precautionary principle when it confronts threats to national security. We spend vast amounts on defenses against threats unlikely to affect Americans. Experts, defense officials, and politicians...

The missing link between insider trading and securities fraud: stockholders always lose in a securities fraud class action.(CORPORATE GOVERNANCE)
December 22, 2007... It has been nearly 40 years since the Second Circuit handed down its landmark opinion in SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulfur Company. In that case, Texas Gulf Sulfur (TGS) had found an unusually rich deposit of ores near Timmins, Ontario. When rumors of...

Has the pendulum swung too far? Post-Enron responses to possible corporate crime have created a climate of fear for honest corporate officers.(CORPORATE GOVERNANCE)
December 22, 2007... The prosecution of corporate fraud has garnered increasing attention in recent years. A number of high-profile cases have captured headlines, sent the involved firms into death spirals, destroyed the careers of numerous managers, and sent many...

Anti-conservation incentives: the Endangered Species Act is endangering species.(PROPERTY)
December 22, 2007... In early 2006, landowners in Boiling Springs Lakes, N.C., began clear-cutting timber from their property after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that development could threaten local red-cockaded woodpecker populations. The FWS...

The property rights movement and intellectual property: a response to Peter Menell.(PROPERTY)
December 22, 2007... The fall issue of Regulation contains a provocative attempt by University of California, Berkeley law professor Peter Menell to discredit what he calls the property rights movement (PRM) for its supposed "absolutist" stance on intellectual...

Intellectual property and the law of land: a reply to Richard Epstein.(PROPERTY)
December 22, 2007... In his response (pp. 58) to my Fall Regulation article "Intellectual Property and the Property Rights Movement," Professor Richard Epstein misses the gist and key implications of my essay on the extension of the "property" tent to encompass...

A new perspective on a labor classic.(What Do Unions Do? A Twenty-Year Perspective )(Book review)
December 22, 2007... WHAT DO UNIONS DO?--A TWENTY-YEAR PERSPECTIVE Edited by James T. Bennett and Bruce E. Kaufman 653 pages; Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction, 2007 John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods, a company widely touted as among the best to work for...

Ammo for the border war.(Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... IMMIGRANTS: Your Country Needs Them By Philippe Legrain 374 pages; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007 Many years ago, I was a guest on a talk radio program originating in California. The host wanted a speaker who would defend...

Water on the brain.(THE FINAL WORD)(Bottled drinking water)
December 22, 2007... We're not supposed to drink bottled water anymore. You know the eco-geniuses behind low-flush toilets and reusable air-sickness-bags? Well, now they've decided that we're more likely to overuse the Earth's store of potable water when we fork...

A regulatory play in two acts.(THE FINAL WORD)(Play)
December 22, 2007... CHARACTERS Chorus Cable VP Cable CEO FCC Chair Trusted Staffer PROLOGUE Enter Chorus Chorus An old regulatory rule says the Federal Communications Commission can strictly regulate the cable industry...