As economists got better at measuring the benefits of regulation,” Stuart Shapiro, a onetime OIRA analyst and now professor of public policy at Rutgers, observes in The Regulatory Review, “benefit-cost analysis began to be seen as a tool that supported more stringent regulation of the economy.”
Topic
OIRA
Dean Shapiro: Another Blow to Regulatory Benefit-Cost Analysis
Stuart Shapiro argues that the Trump Administration’s new OIRA memo accelerates deregulation by sidelining rigorous benefit-cost analysis and elevating presidential preferences over economic evidence. He concludes that formally directing agencies to ignore analysis in key situations may signal the end of a decades-long norm that regulatory decisions should be grounded in objective economic evaluation.
Dean Stuart Shapiro: Biden breaks with precedent by giving up some authority
Dean Shapiro’s latest article in The Hill reflects on an unusual action taken by the Biden Administration to cede some decision-making authority to the Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service.
Research: Reviving more than rationalitiy–using cost-benefit analysis to evaluate regulations
Cost-benefit analysis became particularly contentious during the Trump administration. The administration ignored cost-benefit analysis in favor of “cost analysis” of regulation.