Capture, Accountability, and Regulatory Metrics

Abstract

Today, 40 years after their formation, health and safety agencies are in shambles, in some instances suffering catastrophic, highly publicized failures - think Vioxx (FDA) and Chinese toys (CPSC) - and in other instances experiencing lower-profile but equally devastating, systemic failures in carrying out their core missions - think climate change (EPA) and the dearth of any new controls on workplace exposure to toxic chemicals (OSHA). Efforts to revitalize the administrative state will falter without the adoption of new approaches to the threshold problem that undermines regulatory government: ineffective efforts to hold agencies accountable for failure to accomplish their statutory missions. To respond to this challenge, this Essay proposes to harness the power of the worldwide web with a new version of an old idea: the development of rigorous, concise, and independently developed positive metrics that would give public notice when health and safety agencies are successful in achieving their statutory missions and when they have failed to do so.

Keywords: Accountability, Regulation, Capture, Performance

JEL Classification: K23, K32