Regulation articles from September 2004

Regulation archives from September 2004

Determining workplace regulation's cost.(For The Record)
September 22, 2004... In a previous letter ("A Second Look at Regulation's Cost," Summer 2004), S. Kovitch criticized a study we conducted that estimated the cost of federal workplace regulations on U.S. manufacturers. According to Kovitch, our derived cost figures...

A second look at the Real Oil Problem.(For The Record)
September 22, 2004... I must respond to the misconceptions and incomplete analysis in the recent article by M.A. Adelman ("The Real Oil Problem," Spring 2004). The author claims to address "The Real Oil Problem," but as I will show below, he does not. "Running...

The prescription monopoly.(For The Record)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2004... In a recent article ("Who Certifies Off-Label?" Summer 2004), professors Daniel Klein and Alexander Tabarrok report the apparently contradictory result of their poll indicating that the majority of prescribing physicians oppose increasing...

Mercury emissions.(Mercatus Reports)(Environmental Protection Agency regulations)
September 22, 2004... STATUS: EPA considering public comment Last January 30, in an effort to reduce human exposure to mercury, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a regulation to require coal-fired power plants to lower mercury emissions. While mercury...

IP-enabled services.(Mercatus Reports)(internet protocol)
September 22, 2004... STATUS: FCC considering public comment The Federal Communications Commission has asked for public comment on a wide variety of issues related to the regulatory status of "Internet Protocol (or IP)-Enabled Services" that people use to...

Regulators' budget.(Mercatus Reports)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2004... STATUS: New Mercatus-Weidenhaum report released Each year, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis examine the president's submitted Budget of the U.S. Government to...

Modernizing national equity markets?(Mercatus reports: commentary)
September 22, 2004... THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION is considering sweeping reforms that will profoundly change the regulatory environment of national equity markets. SEC Chairman William Donaldson notes that the reforms, which are collectively known as...

Traffic control: an exercise in self-defeat.(Briefly Noted)
September 22, 2004... THE TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEM WE HAVE today was put together in the early days of the automobile by public officials who knew little about regulating the new means of locomotion. They adopted traffic laws without prior research, on the basis of...

New evidence on drug price controls.(Briefly Noted)
September 22, 2004... IN MY EARLIER REGULATION ARTICLE "DRUG Research and Price Controls" (Winter 2002), I summarized my empirical findings on how pharmaceutical price controls in the United States would reduce industry investment into research and development....

The new role and politics of state regulation: is the recent trend of expanding state regulation beneficial or harmful?(Government)
September 22, 2004... FOUR FRIENDS ARE HAVING A DRINK after a think tank's annual meeting. Two are ideologically conservative scholars--she is a fan of as much deregulation as possible, he is an ardent states' rights advocate. The other two are businesspeople--she...

The Public Choice revolution: Public Choice has demystified and undeified the state.(Theory)
September 22, 2004... HALF-CENTURY AGO, AN ORTHODOX economist would approach the analysis of public policy with the following reasoning: Markets are efficient, or "Pareto-optimal," when perfect competition prevails. Pareto optimality means that there is no way to...

Regulating wine by mail: what really motivates states to change their alcohol distribution laws?(Commerce)
September 22, 2004... IN 1986, CALIFORNIA PASSED LEGISLATION prohibiting the direct shipment of wine to its residents from another state unless the originating state allows California wineries to ship directly to that state's residents. This "reciprocity"...

Coase's first question: when should there not be property rights?(Telecommunications)(Ronald Coase)
September 22, 2004... THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF COASEANS: "proper-Coaseans," and "property-Coaseans." Both adopt the framework of analysis described by Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Coase. But a property-Coasean simplifies that framework in one important way:...

A false sense of insecurity? How does the risk of terrorism measure up against everyday dangers?(Risk)(Cover Story)
September 22, 2004... DETERMINING HOW TO RESPOND TO the terrorist challenge has become a major public policy issue in the United States over the last three years. It has been discussed endlessly, many lives have been changed, a couple of wars have been waged, and...

Talking 'bout my antitrust generation: overeager attorneys on the state level and in Europe threaten to destroy an improved antitrust climate.(Antitrust)
September 22, 2004... TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO, I TOOK MY law school antitrust course from a new assistant professor who had just left the Federal Trade Commission. My performance was adequate but not stellar. In retrospect, I think my underperformance was because...

Competition for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Could the colossal mortgage GSEs begin taking even greater risks than they already are?(Banking & Finance)
September 22, 2004... THE FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) are the two dominant entities in the finance of residential mortgages. Their rapid growth in the 1990s began attracting...

Beyond regulation: it's time to privatize Fannie and Freddie.(Banking & Finance)(Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., Federal National Mortgage Association)
September 22, 2004... I CANNOT DISAGREE WITH THE PRINCIPAL thesis of Scott Frame and Lawrence White's article; if competition develops for Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac, it may cause them to take greater risks in order to maintain their profitability. The authors...

Disasters aren't fun.(The Final Word)
September 22, 2004... I AM BY NO MEANS A PARENTING EXPERT, BUT MY advice to all you moms and dads out there is that if you care about your little ones' sanity, you'll keep them far--and I'm talking Star Wars galaxy far--away from the people at the Federal Emergency...