Can Regulations Come with Unintended Costs?

J. Kennerly Davis, Jr.

Can regulations come with unintended costs? They certainly can, and often do. Despite the best of intentions, laudable objectives, and lots of hard work by expert staff at government agencies, regulations often impose unintended costs that undermine the objectives they are supposed to achieve and harm the people they are supposed to benefit.

The Regulatory Transparency Project has released a new video in its Fourth Branch video series that examines the unintended costs that often come with new regulations. The video features Professor Susan Dudley, founder and Director of the highly regarded Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University.

In the video, Professor Dudley describes her ongoing work, and that of her fellow scholars at the Regulatory Studies Center, to better understand the kinds and causes of unintended regulatory costs. The goal is to make this understanding available to all interested parties so that in the future government agencies can design better regulations that will more effective achieve their laudable objectives while imposing fewer unintended costs.

This video, and the others in the Fourth Branch series, mark important contributions to the Regulatory Transparency Project and its ongoing efforts to help bring Americans to a better understanding of the regulatory system that affects their lives so significantly.

We hope that you enjoy Professor Dudley’s new video, and that it encourages you to become more actively involved in the Regulatory Transparency Project. And we certainly hope that you will share the Regulatory Transparency Project’s website with all your friends.

J. Kennerly Davis, Jr.

Former Senior Attorney

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP


Regulatory Process

The Federalist Society and Regulatory Transparency Project take no position on particular legal or public policy matters. All expressions of opinion are those of the author(s). To join the debate, please email us at [email protected].

Related Content

Skip to content