The Future of Regulations: Moving From Presumption to Proof

Conference Materials

Click here to access the Mercatus Regulation Conference Booklet

Below is a list of Mercatus publications distributed at the conference:

Regulation and the International Competiveness of the U.S. Economy

Examining the Bush Midnight Regulations

Risk Assessment, Safety Assessment, and Estimation of Regulatory Benefits

OSHA's Role in Promoting Occupational Safety and Health

Improving the Regulatory Process

Overriding Consumer Preferences with Energy Regulations

Economic Analysis by Federal Financial Regulators

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Designed to Fail?

Event information

Please join the Mercatus Center at George Mason University for a series of discussions grounded in academic research and practical experience on how and why the current regulatory process falls short of its purpose—and what can be done to improve regulation in the future.

While intended to solve problems that otherwise would not be addressed, the current regulatory process often yields excessively broad and burdensome rules that fail to achieve the desired public objective. This conference will focus on identifying and addressing the fundamental challenges in the regulatory process. Key topics will include (click here to view full agenda):

•  Regulations as ‘Panacea’: Exploring the Consequences  

-Capturing and comparing changes in the volume, scope and burden of federal regulations. regulations. 

-The unintended effects of regulations on the unemployed and low-income individuals.

-The effects on entrepreneurship and competition when regulations pick winners and losers.

• Key Challenges, Key Solutions  

-Ending the ‘Ready, Fire, Aim!’ approach to regulations.

-A look at how the U.S. stacks up to international competition in understanding regulations’ effect on economic growth.  

-How the U.S.’s regulatory focus can shift from rulemaking to problem solving. •

• Benefits: Promises and Proof (breakout sessions)  

-A case-study review of how regulation’s claimed benefits are identified, measured, and justified.

-Options for assessing whether a regulation’s claimed benefits are realistic.

-A look at how poorly crafted and applied risk assessment often yields unnecessary and ineffective regulations.

-The importance of retrospective review and analysis in understanding the effectiveness of current regulations.

Please register online for this event. This event is free and open to all congressional, executive branch, and federal agency staff, as well as the media and colleagues in the policy and corporate sector. Due to space constraints, please no interns without prior approval. For any questions, please contact Casey Newberry at cnewber2@gmu.edu or (703) 993-4967.