The Regulatory Action Center Review – May 22, 2018

Video of the Week:
This video, discussing the history of electricity regulation, holds many lessons for modern regulatory policy for markets such as broadband internet:

Statistic of the Week: Federal Regulatory Burden Increases Poverty

Controlling for other factors known to influence poverty rates, researchers at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University found, "A 10 percent increase in the effective federal regulatory burden upon a state is associated with about a 2.5 percent increase in the poverty rate."
Full study: Regulation and PovertyAn Empirical Examination of the Relationship between the Incidence of Federal Regulation and the Occurrence of Poverty across the States

Regulatory Capture Quantified?

Additional Mercatus Center research found, "a 10 percent increase in the the regulatory restrictions on a particular industry is associated with a decrease of about 0.5 percent of the total number of small firms within that industry. By contrast, there is no similar change in the number of large firms associated with such an increase in regulation." Many advocate for increased regulation to check dominant interests, but this research proves such tends to just stifle the most effective check of all–competition.
Full study: Regulation, Entrepreneurship, and Firm Size

Don’t Fear Mobile Monopolies

Using the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger as a backdrop, this article explains that, among other factors, quality of competition is more important than the quantity of competitors in a given market.
Full article: Why Regulators Shouldn’t Touch the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger

Other articles:

How Trump can build on regulatory reform: Borrow from Reagan’s playbook

Why More Regulations Won’t Fix the Financial Sector’s Problems

No, Fed Reg Relief Isn’t Courting Financial Disaster

Tell the Energy Department What You Think about Your Dishwasher

Take Action: MakeDishwashersGreatAgain.com

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