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Grading Estimates of the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation

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  • Harrington, Winston

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

I review two recent estimates of the costs and, in one case, benefits of federal regulation. The first is found in the Office of Management and Budget’s 2005 report to Congress on the benefits and costs of federal regulations (OMB 2005b). OMB estimates annual benefits in 2004 to be $70 to $277 billion and costs to be $34 to $39 billion, but these estimates omit a great deal; the cost estimate, in particular, is generally acknowledged to be an underestimate. The other estimate, written by Mark Crain (Crain 2005) and sponsored by the Small Business Administration, uses a different approach and generates an estimate of $1 trillion. Crain also finds that the burden on small firms is much greater than the burden on large firms. In the final section of the paper, I also review a recent comparison, presented in the 2005 report to Congress, of ex ante and ex post estimates of the benefits and costs of individual regulations. I find the Crain report to be deeply problematic and the OMB’s ex ante/ex post comparison slightly less so.

Suggested Citation

  • Harrington, Winston, 2006. "Grading Estimates of the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation," RFF Working Paper Series dp-06-39, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-06-39
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    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-06-39.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Winston Harrington & Richard D. Morgenstern & Peter Nelson, 2000. "On the accuracy of regulatory cost estimates," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 297-322.
    2. Richard A. Posner, 1975. "The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 45-65, Springer.
    3. Christainsen, Gregory B & Haveman, Robert H, 1981. "Public Regulations and the Slowdown in Productivity Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 320-325, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jerry Ellig & Patrick A. McLaughlin & John F. Morrall III, 2013. "Continuity, change, and priorities: The quality and use of regulatory analysis across US administrations," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 153-173, June.
    2. Flyvbjerg, Bent & Bester, Dirk W., 2021. "The Cost-Benefit Fallacy: Why Cost-Benefit Analysis Is Broken and How to Fix It," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 395-419, October.
    3. Robert W. Hahn & Paul C. Tetlock, 2008. "Has Economic Analysis Improved Regulatory Decisions?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 67-84, Winter.
    4. Lutter Randall, 2013. "Regulatory policy: what role for retrospective analysis and review?," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 17-38, March.
    5. Becker, Randy A. & Pasurka, Carl & Shadbegian, Ronald J., 2013. "Do environmental regulations disproportionately affect small businesses? Evidence from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 523-538.
    6. Aldy, Joseph E., 2022. "Learning How to Build Back Better through Clean Energy Policy Evaluation," RFF Working Paper Series 22-15, Resources for the Future.
    7. Sean E. Mulholland, 2019. "Stratification by regulation: Are bootleggers and Baptists biased?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 105-130, July.
    8. Becker, Randy A. & Pasurka, Carl & Shadbegian, Ronald J., 2013. "Do environmental regulations disproportionately affect small businesses? Evidence from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 523-538.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    regulation; benefits; costs; ex ante; ex post; OMB;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K29 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Other
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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