Costs and Benefits of Regulations

A lot of candidates in this election are inweighing against the regulatory burden. Being tight with several entrepreneurs, I agree that over-regulation is undesirable. There is however a reason why regulations are in place, and not all of it is government overreach.

I think that there should be a rational way to decide whether a regulation should be kept or discarded, and that is as follows: Are the financial and human costs of enforcing and complying with the regulation greater or less than the financial and human costs that it saves?

Regulations such as "there shouldn't be cyanide in the water" or "there shouldn't be plague-infested rats in the restaurant" are probably worth keeping. But there are tons of nitpicking, useless and time-consuming regulations that should not be there at all. I remember when I was working for a Lebanese carry-out the inspector coming in and making issue of littlest things. To my knowledge, no one was hurt by eating at that carry-out, and the nitpicking shown by the inspector was totally uncalled for.

It should be possible to decide which regulations are rightful and which regulations are useless or worse. Indeed, there can be a mathematical function for this. One can compute the cost of the problems the regulation stands to prevent; the cost of what it takes to enforce the regulation and what it costs for the businesses to comply with it; and make a simple calculation as to which one is greater.

And then it will be possible to decide rationally which regulations should be kept and which regulations should rightfully be discarded.