The Search for Solutions: Looking Beyond Prescriptive Regulation

Please join the Mercatus Center's Regulation University for a seminar on the wide range of regulatory and non-regulatory options available to solve problems, and how Congress can evaluate those options. Our seminar panel will explain how to apply search-for-solution tools to examples drawn from health care, financial markets and technology policy areas.

Several key debates this year will focus on the economic impact of federal regulations. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is pleased to offer a series of courses designed to help congressional staff better understand the regulatory process by providing the concepts and skills necessary to conduct informed regulatory oversight. 

This seminar will review the menu of options available for solving problems, and how to recognize factors that indicate whether an agency has adequately identified and evaluated options relevant to a specific problem and the intended outcomes.

Our discussion panel includes Jerry Brito and J.W. Verret, Mercatus scholars and professors at George Mason University School of Law, and Henry Butler, Executive Director of the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University School of Law. The panel will address these issues from the perspective of three major policy areas:

• Technology – Is regulation necessary to ensure cybersecurity? What should we know about market responses to cyber threats before we select a course of action? 
• Health Care – What is the market failure in health care? What roles do the federal and state governments have in finding solutions? 
• Financial Markets – When does federal pre-emption produce bad outcomes in financial regulation? How to recognize a regulatory failure and what to do about it. 

For counsels working for members of Congress, the Mercatus Center will make applications to the Kentucky Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Commission and the Virginia Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Board to approve this course for one (1) general CLE credit hour. More information on the status of CLE credit applications will be available at the course.

This event is free and open to all congressional, executive branch, and federal agency staff. This event is not open to the general public. Food will be provided. 

View our topic guide: Effective Regulatory Oversight

Questions? Please contact Ashley Schiller, Events Associate, at aschille@gmu.edu or (703) 993-9228