Over the last century, the United States has witnessed three approaches to achieving better regulatory outcomes: the removal of “economic” regulations in certain sectors; regulatory impact analysis (RIA) of new “social” regulations; and retrospective analysis of existing regulations. This article reviews the rationale for each approach, the results to date, and the remaining challenges. It finds that both institutional and technical factors influence the success of reform efforts.

In the late 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the bubble policy as a central part of Jimmy Carter's plan to reform environmental regulations that many believed had grown too proscriptive and too costly for American industry. Since the EPA's formation, regulators had dictated method and means for reducing air pollution. The bubble returned the prerogative to business. But despite bipartisan support, the bubble never took off. Drawing on EPA records and interviews, this article shows how skeptical regulators intentionally made the bubble unwieldy, driving away businesses wary of uncertainty. Though Ronald Reagan's election seemed to lift the bubble's fortunes, his undiscerning assault on the administrative state ironically deflated the EPA's development of a viable alternative to the proscriptive model.

Numerous regulatory reform proposals would require federal agencies to conduct more thorough economic analysis of proposed regulations or expand the resources and influence of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which currently reviews executive branch regulations. Such reforms are intended to improve the quality of economic analysis agencies produce when they issue major regulations. We employ newly gathered data on variation in current administrative procedures to assess the likely effects of proposed regulatory process reforms on the quality of agencies’ regulatory impact analyses (RIAs). Our results suggest that greater use of advance notices of proposed rulemakings for major regulations, advance consultation with regulated entities, use of advisory committees, and expansion of OIRA’s resources and role would improve the quality of RIAs. They also suggest pre-proposal public meetings with stakeholders are associated with lower quality analysis.

Applying benefit-cost analysis in the White House regulatory oversight process served as a basic mission of the Council on Wage and Price Stability (CWPS) during its seven-year lifespan (1974–1981). This paper reviews that CWPS experience, which involved filing comments in over 300 proceedings at more than 25 federal regulatory agencies. The paper draws on those CWPS public comments (filings), identifying persistent and pervasive deficiencies in the economic analysis regulators then and now often use as support for new regulation. CWPS filings fostered greater acceptance of benefit-cost analysis in regulatory decisions; such analysis is now required by executive order.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was signed into law on January 1,1970, has come to be regarded as the first major piece of federal legislation to call for comprehensive attention to environmental concerns in the United States. During the two decades following enactment of NEPA, Congress adopted and then refined major legislation on nearly every aspect of environmental quality concerns: air pollution, water pollution, drinking water quality, hazardous waste management, wildlife protection, pesticide use, and several related problem areas. Current arguments for environmental regulatory reform are a phase in the continuing evolution of this body of federal environmental policy.

Global banks are changing. With a new set of rules come new business models. We review the international dimension of the financial crisis, centring on cross-border losses and cross-currency funding problems that prompted authorities to adopt wide-ranging rescue measures and liquidity operations. Against this background, we proceed to examine the regulatory response, focusing on the Basel III framework and the ongoing work of the Basel Committee and Financial Stability Board regarding the amount of capital banks are required to hold, restrictions on maturity transformation on banks' balance sheets and proposals to mitigate the risks posed by systemically important financial institutions. Our conclusion is that capital and liquidity regulation will have distinctly different effects on the international organisation of banks. Liquidity regulation, especially when applied locally, has the greatest potential to reshape the global banking landscape.

There has been much talk about regulatory reform around the world in the wake of the financial crisis but relatively little action. As a major international financial centre, the UK is very much at the heart of the debate and has a particular interest in the ultimate outcome. The financial crisis has exposed the weaknesses of ‘light touch’ regulation and ‘principles-based’ regulation, which characterised the UK system in the pre-crisis phase. Changes to the institutional structure of regulation recently announced by the new coalition government, combined with changes to regulatory style, are likely to have far-reaching consequences for the practice and intensity of regulation in the UK. This article reviews and assesses recent and proposed regulatory changes and considers the relationship between corporate governance and regulation. It evaluates the impact on the UK system of initiatives undertaken at international and EC levels as well as various interests and incentives within the UK that are likely to be influential in shaping the regulatory regime in years to come.