From the Cover
Just Say Nudge
Discouraging drug use and promoting more careful consumption would be better than the current prohibition.
Comment
We agree that a legalized, “nudged” regime would, subject to the caveats below, be far better than prohibition. But such a regime would accrue its benefits in large part from legalization, and to a significantly lesser degree from any nudging.
Features
The Rise of Post-Supremacy Federalism
What happens when the federal government stops cooperating?
The Supreme Court’s Job after FCC v. Consumers’ Research
The Court now must take the next step in restoring representative government.
Was Friedman Wrong about the Minimum Wage?
Why hasn’t empirical research settled the debate over this policy?
‘New Right’ Antitrust
After bemoaning the politicization of antitrust during the Biden administration, Trump officials are now politicizing it themselves.
How Should We Value the Future?
Determining the social cost of carbon is as much a matter of ethics as it is of science and economics.
Cutting the Sludge
A Regulatory Reform Agenda
There are better ways to approach such reform.
Two Key Steps to Get Rid of the Sludge
There are two related steps that the administration could take to target sludge across the government.
Deregulation Based on Good Sludge
The economic criteria that are appropriate for deregulation parallel the tests that should be applied before enacting regulations in the first place.
Regulatory Gatekeepers and Their Sludge
One little-known provision in the regulatory arcana is that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is not allowed to review the work of these gatekeepers.
The Administrative Procedure Act’s Missing Element
This contemporary critique of the modern American administrative state is an implicit benefit–cost analysis that mirrors the one that Thomas Jefferson expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “The costs of colonial loyalty to the established British governing order exceed the benefits.”
Briefly Noted
The States Remain the AI Regulatory Leader
With no federal legislation regulating AI technologies, state legislatures are making their own efforts to advance data privacy and security in AI tools.
Trumpian Chaos as an Attempt at Central Planning
Of course, there is government planning and there is government planning.
In Review
Book Review: Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages Is Destroying America
Surprisingly, given the centrality of wages to the book’s premise, Lind offers little evidence there is a low wages crisis
Book Review: The Young Fed: The Banking Crises of the 1920s and the Making of a Lender of Last Resort
The book deals mainly with the experiences of the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.
Book Review: How Economics Explains the World: A Short History of Humanity
Unfortunately, we have seen a backsliding in this economic liberalism over the last decade, especially in the United States.
Working Papers
A summary of recent papers that may be of interest to Regulation’s readers.
Final Word
Coercion and Violence
Even when a majority supports a justifiable policy, some people are going to oppose it.