If you use RegData, please cite:  Al-Ubaydli, O. and McLaughlin, P.A. (2015) “RegData: A numerical database on industry-specific regulations for all United States industries and federal regulations, 1997-2012.” Regulation & Governance, doi: 10.1111/rego.12107. About Mercatus Regulatory Studies The Regulatory Studies Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University works to improve the state of knowledge about […]

Contrary to the popular narrative of the 2008 financial crisis, RegData reveals that in actuality, financial regulation did not decrease in the decade leading up to the crisis—it increased.

If you use RegData, please cite:  Al-Ubaydli, O. and McLaughlin, P.A. (2015) “RegData: A numerical database on industry-specific regulations for all United States industries and federal regulations, 1997-2012.” Regulation & Governance, doi: 10.1111/rego.12107. About Mercatus Regulatory Studies The Regulatory Studies Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University works to improve the state of knowledge about […]

While the correlation between agency budgets and the levels of agency restrictions is clearly high, the question of whether one causes the other remains unanswered.

Agencies responded to Dodd-Frank with hundreds of new rules on a scale that vastly exceeds any previous regulation of financial markets and dwarfs the regulations that accompanied all other legislation enacted during the Obama administration.

Dodd-Frank primarily affected the finance and insurance industries by requiring numerous agencies to significantly increase their rates of rulemaking.

It would take longer to read the Code of Federal Regulations than the entire Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings series combined.

Contrary to the popular narrative of the 2008 financial crisis, RegData reveals that in actuality, financial regulation did not decrease in the decade leading up to the crisis—it increased.

Not all executive orders are created equal, as seen if you take a closer look at not just the quantity, but also the content of executive orders and proclamations for the past six presidential terms.

Regulatory restrictions have consistently grown over the same time frame that administrations have attempted to retrospectively modify or eliminate nonfunctioning regulations.

The top ten regulators accounted for almost one-third of all restrictions published in 2012, with the EPA and IRS producing the most restrictions.

From these charts, a picture emerges of a 40-year bipartisan trend of regulatory accumulation, with the last two presidents adding the most regulatory restrictions.