Robert Hahn

Incorporating Equity Concerns in Regulation

US regulatory agencies have been required to consider the equity and distributional impacts of regulations for decades. This paper examines the extent to which such analysis is done and provides recommendations for improving it. The Technology Policy Institute (TPI) analyzed 187 cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) prepared by agencies from October 2003 to January 2021. TPI finds that only two CBAs provided net benefits of a policy for a specific demographic group.