‘Best Practice’ Standards for Regulatory Benefit–Cost Analysis

Abstract

Government agencies have endeavored, with limited success, to improve the methodological consistency of regulatory benefit–cost analysis (BCA). This paper recommends that an independent cohort of economists, policy analysts and legal scholars take on that task. Independently established “best practices” would have four positive effects: (1) they would render BCAs more regular in form and format and, thus, more readily assessable and replicable by social scientists; (2) improved consistency might marginally reduce political opposition to BCA as a policy tool; (3) politically-motivated, inter-agency methodological disputes might be avoided; and (4) an independent set of “best practices” would provide a sound, independent basis for judicial review of agency BCAs.

Citation

Cole, D.H. (2007), "‘Best Practice’ Standards for Regulatory Benefit–Cost Analysis", Zerbe, R.O. (Ed.) Research in Law and Economics (Research in Law and Economics, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-47. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0193-5895(07)23001-5