Attention to Distribution in U.S. Regulatory Analysis
2016
Before promulgating a major environmental, health, or safety regulation, U.S. government agencies are expected to analyze the distribution of its impacts as well as its total costs and benefits. This article reviews several analyses to explore whether this expectation is being met. The authors find that agencies provide little information on distributional impacts. To the extent that these impacts are assessed, agencies often focus on the distribution of health effects and do not address the distribution of the associated costs across individuals in different income or other groups. While the reason for this lack of attention is unclear, the authors argue that this practice is problematic. Further research is needed to better understand the distribution of both costs and benefits and to determine whether more routine provision of such information is desirable.
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Attention to Distribution in U.S. Regulatory Analysis
Source:
Robinson LA, Hammitt JK, Zeckhauser R. Attention to Distribution in U.S. Regulatory Analysis. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 2016; 10 (2): 308-328. https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rew011
Not open access.