Does Regulation Kill Jobs

As millions of Americans struggle to find work in the wake of the Great Recession, politicians from both parties look to regulation in search of an economic cure. Some claim that burdensome regulations undermine private sector competitiveness and job growth, while others argue that tough new regulations actually create jobs at the same time that they provide other benefits. Does Regulation Kill Jobs? reveals the complex reality of regulation that supports neither partisan view. Leading legal scholars, economists, political scientists, and policy analysts show that individual regulations can at times induce employment shifts across firms, sectors, and regions—but regulation overall is neither a prime job killer nor a key job creator. The challenge for policymakers is to look carefully at individual regulatory proposals to discern any job shifting they may cause and then to make regulatory decisions sensitive to anticipated employment effects. Drawing on their analyses, contributors recommend methods for obtaining better estimates of job impacts when evaluating regulatory costs and benefits. They also assess possible ways of reforming regulatory institutions and processes to take better account of employment effects in policy decision-making. Does Regulation Kills Jobs? tackles what has become a heated partisan issue with exactly the kind of careful analysis policymakers need in order to make better policy decisions, providing insights that will benefit both politicians and citizens who seek economic growth as well as the protection of public health and safety, financial security, environmental sustainability, and other civic goals. Contributors: Matthew D. Adler, Joseph E. Aldy, Christopher Carrigan, Cary Coglianese, E. Donald Elliott, Rolf Färe, Ann Ferris, Adam M. Finkel, Wayne B. Gray, Shawna Grosskopf, Michael A. Livermore, Brian F. Mannix, Jonathan S. Masur, Al McGartland, Richard Morgenstern, Carl A. Pasurka, Jr., William A. Pizer, Eric A. Posner, Lisa A. Robinson, Jason A. Schwartz, Ronald J. Shadbegian, Stuart Shapiro.

"Small Business Committee document number 112-035."

Whether striving to protect citizens from financial risks, climate change, inadequate health care, or the uncertainties of the emerging “sharing” economy, regulators must routinely make difficult judgment calls in an effort to meet the conflicting demands that society places on them. Operating within a political climate of competing demands, regulators need a lodestar to help them define and evaluate success. Achieving Regulatory Excellence provides that direction by offering new insights from law, public administration, political science, sociology, and policy sciences on what regulators need to do to improve their performance. Achieving Regulatory Excellence offers guidance from leading international experts about how regulators can set appropriate priorities and make sound, evidence-based decisions through processes that are transparent and participatory. With increasing demands for smarter but leaner government, the need for sound regulatory capacity—for regulatory excellence—has never been stronger.

For years, America has been plagued by slow economic growth and increasing inequality. In The Captured Economy, Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles identify a common factor behind these twin ills: breakdowns in democratic governance that allow wealthy special interests to capture the policymaking process for their own benefit. They document the proliferation of regressive regulations that redistribute wealth and income up the economic scale while stifling entrepreneurship and innovation. They also detail the most important cases of regulatory barriers that have worked to shield the powerful from the rigors of competition, thereby inflating their incomes: subsidies for the financial sector's excessive risk taking, overprotection of copyrights and patents, favoritism toward incumbent businesses through occupational licensing schemes, and the NIMBY-led escalation of land use controls that drive up rents for everyone else. An original and counterintuitive interpretation of the forces driving inequality and stagnation, The Captured Economy will be necessary reading for anyone concerned about America's mounting economic problems and how to improve the social tensions they are sparking.

For decades, administrations of both political parties have used cost-benefit analysis to evaluate and improve federal policy in a variety of areas, including health and the environment. Today, this model is under grave threat. In Reviving Rationality, Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz explain how Donald Trump has destabilized the decades-long bipartisan consensus that federal agencies must base their decisions on evidence, expertise, and analysis. Administrative agencies are charged by law with protecting values like stable financial markets and clean air. Their decisions often have profound consequences, affecting everything from the safety of workplaces to access to the dream of home ownership. Under the Trump administration, agencies have been hampered in their ability to advance these missions by the conflicting ideological whims of a changing cast of political appointees and overwhelming pressure from well-connected interest groups. Inconvenient evidence has been ignored, experts have been sidelined, and analysis has been used to obscure facts, rather than inform the public. The results are grim: incoherent policy, social division, defeats in court, a demoralized federal workforce, and a loss of faith in government's ability to respond to pressing problems. This experiment in abandoning the norms of good governance has been a disaster. Reviving Rationality explains how and why our government has abandoned rationality in recent years, and why it is so important for future administrations to restore rigorous cost-benefit analysis if we are to return to a policymaking approach that effectively tackles the most pressing problems of our era.

Is much of the current dysfunction in our political system attributable to the problematic discourse of politicians, pundits, and journalists? These authors on legal and political discourse say yes. This book contains essays by some of the best scholars of political communication that examine modern-day American political discourse. The contributors address what is problematic in our political discourse and what has resulted in unprecedented levels of gridlock, discord, and hostility, covering everything from the incivility of Congress to the spectacle of celebrity politicians... the arrogance of Republican and Democratic presidents to the difficulties of grassroots groups hoping to change the status quo... and the partisan shaping of news coverage to the growing influence of political comedians. This work provides a frank, hard-nosed look at what needs fixing, offers a critical lens from knowledgeable writers to help those frustrated with our political system to better understand why our discourse is so troubled, and lays out suggestions for reclaiming the commonwealth. Anyone interested in politics, government, or communication will benefit from learning how recent developments have created a "perfect storm" that is troubling the waters of our democracy.