Regulatory costs of mythic proportions.

Yale Law Journal, May, 1998 by Heinzerling, Lisa

Critiques of risk regulation rely pervasively on estimates of the costs Of various federal regulations per life saved. As Professor Heinzerling illustrates in this Article, most of these estimates derive from a single source, a table prepared in the 1980s by an economist at the Office of Management and Budget, John Morrall. That table reports costs per life saved reaching hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars. These oft-cited estimates are, however, vastly higher than the agencies' own estimates of costs and benefits The divergence in estimates stems from the fact that Morrall adjusted the agencies' figures by discounting future lives saved and, in many cases, greatly decreasing estimates of risk Without these adjustments, Professor Heinzerling demonstrates, the costs per...

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