The Economics of Regulatory Repeal

Given the Trump administration’s emphasis on repealing regulations, this article discusses issues related to conducting benefit–cost analyses of regulatory repeal. In particular, the article develops analyses of the repeal and modification of six major rules issued by the Obama administration and compares them to analyses conducted by the Trump administration. The results illustrate the sensitivity of these analyses to several key analytical components, including the social cost of methane emissions and the upper-bound estimates of catastrophic accidents, and also illustrate that the Trump administration’s ranking of the six rules using its preferred metric—the cost savings of repeal—differs from a ranking that uses net benefits. Recommendations are provided for improving regulatory impact analyses, including those conducted for regulatory repeal.