"This monograph addresses the analytical concerns raised by the critics. It makes four points: First, summary measures of the impact of regulations have made important contributions to our understanding of the regulatory process, a point often overlooked by the critics; second, many of the critics' concerns could be addressed by making refinements to scorecards rather than wholly rejecting them as an analytical tool; third, some of the suggestions made by the critics are legitimate, but many are not; and finally, the solution to legitimate concerns raised by the critics is not to eliminate quantitative economic analysis but to gain a deeper understanding of its strengths and weaknesses and to use it wisely."--BOOK JACKET.

Several scholars are highly skeptical of the use of cost-benefit analysis and other economic tools in regulatory decision making. Recently, these critics have focused on debunking economic summaries of regulatory activity, sometimes referred to as regulatory scorecards. The critics generally support less quantitative economic analysis of regulations. This monograph addresses the analytical concerns raised by the critics. It makes four points: First, summary measures of the impact of regulations have made important contributions to our understanding of the regulatory process, a point often overlooked by the critics; second, many of the critics' concerns could be addressed by making refinements to scorecards rather than wholly rejecting them as an analytical tool; third, some of the suggestions made by the critics are legitimate, but many are not; and finally, the solution to legitimate concerns raised by the critics is not to eliminate quantitative economic analysis but to gain a deeper understanding of its strengths and weaknesses and to use it wisely.

The economic analysis of regulation raises fundamental questions about how society assigns value to different outcomes and states of the world, how conflict over law and public policy is resolved, and how institutional realities affect -- in ways both planned and unplanned -- forms of societal decision-making that are meant to incorporate ideals of technical rigor, administrability, and responsiveness. In countries like the United States, the conduct of such analysis has implications for environmental protection, communications and technology policy, public health, immigration, national security, and other areas affecting risk and welfare in society. This paper covers only a portion of the territory necessary to understand those implications, focusing on the following essential topics: First, what do we mean by “economic analysis” and what do we mean by “regulation”? Second, why has this topic become an important one, not only the United States, but in most advanced democracies? Third, why is economic analysis and regulation a contested, even contentious, aspect of modern regulatory activity? Finally, and most important, how is economic analysis structured into regulatory decision-making, and how might existing arrangements evolve over time? As we address these questions, we explain why a familiarity with both the promise and the limits of economic analysis is crucial to any serious understanding of regulation -- whether prescriptive or descriptive -- in advanced economies. In practice, the aspirations of economic analysis in the regulatory state must be reconciled with various administrative and legal arrangements necessary to advance values, such as adjudicatory fairness or political responsiveness, that are often in tension with the technical rigor to which economic analysis of regulation aspires.