The Open Market Blog

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/19/2015

How much does regulation crimp innovation? Not very much, according to a new study from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Nathan Goldschlag and George Mason University’s Alex…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/16/2015

In a week like any other, regulatory agencies issued more than 50 new rules covering everything from from rockfish to wine. On to the data:…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/09/2015

Last week’s batch of new rules covered everything from fluorescent lights to postage rates. On to the data: Last week, 59 new final regulations were…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/02/2015

Regulators stepped up their pace last week, with nearly 80 regulations covering everything from defibrillators to Korean oranges. On to the data: Last week, 77…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/29/2015

Here’s a letter I wrote to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that appears in today’s paper: The Post-Gazette’s editorial board calls on Congress to reauthorize the Export-Import…

Trade and International

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/26/2015

Even in a shortened work week due to Martin Luther King Day, federal agencies still put out 40 final regulations and more than 50 proposed…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/19/2015

40 new regulations, from solid waste to washing machines.

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/12/2015

Happy New Year to all of our regulatory followers! Wayne Crews previously summed up 2014’s year-end statistics in this post. Among the highlights are 3,541…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/29/2014

The federal government took Thursday and Friday off to celebrate the holidays. Despite the rare three-day work week, agencies still published 25 proposed regulations, more…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/22/2014

69 new regulations, from washing machines to plants for planting.

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/15/2014

While Congress was busy with the 1,603-page Cromnibus bill (full text), agencies added nearly that many pages to the Federal Register with new regulations for everything…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/10/2014

Many progressives strongly support minimum wage increases. This is troubling, because the effects those increases actually have on many poor people are regressive. Signaling your concern for…

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/08/2014

While the number of new regulations last week was normal, their cost was abnormal, totaling well over half a billion dollars just for the four…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/01/2014

Is it possible for opposite policies to both be wrong? Over at the Washington Examiner, I argue that it is. The U.S. is ending…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/01/2014

Regulators had much to be thankful for during the short Thanksgiving work week, with new rules covering everything from grocery store ads to wireless signal…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 11/24/2014

It was a bit of a slow week as these things go, but regulators still published new rules on everything from stress testing to sage…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 11/17/2014

The Federal Register took Tuesday off to observe Veterans’ Day. The short week was still a busy one, with Thursday’s edition alone totaling 783 pages. On to…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 11/03/2014

In the final week before the midterm election, agencies published new regulations ranging from dairy profits to Japanese oranges. Fittingly, the total number of new…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 10/27/2014

Minimum wages help some workers, which is why they are so popular. But they aren’t a free lunch. There are tradeoffs. They aren’t always easy…

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 10/27/2014

It was business as usual, with new rules hitting the books on everything from political speech restrictions to butterflies to football broadcasts. On to the…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 10/20/2014

The federal government took Monday off for Columbus Day, but still managed to pack more than 50 new regulations into a short week. On to…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 10/14/2014

Even with a mid-term election coming up next month, agencies are cranking out a dozen or so new regulations every workday. The federal government also…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 10/09/2014

President Obama is right that Congress doesn’t do much. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. But the pen and phone strategy Obama proposed…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 10/06/2014

The Federal Register topped the 60,000-page mark on Friday, and is on pace for the 6th-highest page count in its 79-year history. Along the way,…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/29/2014

A busy week ended with a flourish, with Friday’s Federal Register alone containing 28 final regulations and 542 pages.

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/17/2014

Congress hasn’t voted just yet on the Continuing Resolution that includes the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization. But we already know that it will pass this week,…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/15/2014

The number of new regulations topped 2,500 on the year, while the Federal Register added 1,853 pages to end the week just shy of the…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/11/2014

A vote on the Continuing Resolution, which includes the controversial Export-Import Bank reauthorization was originally scheduled for today, but has been pushed back to next…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/09/2014

It appears Congress will decide the Export-Import Bank’s short-term fate this week. There are several bills with different reauthorization terms, and Rep. Justin Amash and…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/08/2014

It was a short week due to the Labor Day holiday, but agencies still managed to issue more than 60 new regulations and push the…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/03/2014

Congress comes back from its annual August recess next week. One of the top items on its agenda is deciding the Export-Import Bank’s fate. Ex-Im…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 09/03/2014

In a week like any other, federal agencies issued regulations for everything from dairy farmers’ profit margins to Canadian apple exports.

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 08/25/2014

The Federal Register burst past the 50,000-page mark with Friday’s 878-page effort, which also contained 21 final regulations and four “significant” documents.

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 08/19/2014

About three years ago, our friends at the Mercatus Center launched a website called RegData that compiles a searchable database on many facets of…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 08/12/2014

One of the weakest arguments against free trade is the "unilateral disarmament" fallacy--that a country should refuse to liberalize its trade policies until other countries…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 08/11/2014

Despite another 47 proposed regulations and 80 final regulations last week, 2014 remains on pace to have the smallest number of new regulations of any…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 08/08/2014

Over at American Banker’s BankThink blog, I have a piece making the case for closing the Export-Import Bank, mostly on corruption grounds: The…

Banking and Finance

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/28/2014

Seventy-four new regulations, from spearmint oil to insurance exchanges.

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 07/21/2014

In addition to 100 final regulations, 62 proposed regulations made their way to the Federal Register last week.

Regulatory Reform