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Grading Estimates of the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation

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Author Info
Harrington, Winston () (Resources for the Future)

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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.

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Paper provided by Resources For the Future in its series Discussion Papers with number dp-06-39.

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Date of creation: 13 Sep 2006
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Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-06-39

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Related research
Keywords: regulation; benefits; costs; ex ante; ex post; OMB;

Find related papers by 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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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. 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 320-25, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Morgenstern, Richard & Harrington, Winston & Nelson, Per-Kristian, 1999. "On the Accuracy of Regulatory Cost Estimates," Discussion Papers dp-99-18, Resources For the Future. [Downloadable!]
  3. Dale W. Jorgenson & Peter J. Wilcoxen, 1990. "Environmental Regulation and U.S. Economic Growth," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(2), pages 314-340, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Posner, Richard A, 1975. "The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(4), pages 807-27, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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