Does Haste Make Waste in Regulatory Analysis?

Abstract

Most federal agencies must conduct economic analysis when proposing major regulations. This paper uses a new data set scoring the quality of analysis accompanying proposed regulations in 2008 to assess whether some types of regulations receive more thorough analysis than others. Previous scholarship speculates that “midnight regulations” receive less thorough consideration, and the Office of Management and Budget asserts that agencies rarely estimate benefits and costs of “transfer” regulations that describe how agencies will spend or collect money. Our tests find that “midnight” regulations proposed after June 1, 2008, and “transfer” regulations both have significantly lower-quality analysis.

Keywords: regulation, economic analysis, regulatory quality, midnight regulations

JEL Classification: D61, D73, D78, K23, L51