Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T02:02:21.137Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“What’s Your Problem?”: Building an Evidence-Based System of Regulatory Analysis from the Bottom-Up

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2025

Reeve T. Bull*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar Program, Richmond, Virginia, United States

Abstract

This article is part of a larger series that is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Jerry Ellig, with whom I had the pleasure of working on multiple occasions. It explores the concept of regulatory subsidiarity, which involves pushing regulatory power down from centralized governments to state, local, tribal, and other governments. It explains how this approach both promotes policy tailoring and facilitates regulatory experimentation, allowing policy makers to test which interventions produce the best results. Finally, it considers how regulatory subsidiarity has proven itself outside of the U.S. and can succeed within the U.S. as well.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Jerry Ellig, Evaluating the Quality and Use of Regulatory Impact Analysis, Mercatus Working Paper (July 6, 2016).

2 Paul Waldman, On Abortion and Guns, Republicans Are Ready to Abandon Federalism, The Washington Post (May 31, 2022).

3 Ronald Brownstein, America Is Growing Apart, Possibly for Good, The Atlantic (June 24, 2022).

4 European Parliament, The Principle of Subsidiarity, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/7/the-principle-of-subsidiarity (last visited July 19, 2023).