Recent Projects

After more than a year of research, surveys, and analysis, Policy Integrity is the first to compile the regulatory practices of all fifty states in one document. Comparing each set of laws and guidelines on paper to direct feedback from leaders on the ground, the report assigns states a grade based on the quality of their review process.

Grandfathering has become a common practice in regulating industries like coal power generation. But it is not clear that phasing out polluting plants is beneficial. The costs of retrofitting existing plants to comply with new standard can be higher than the compliance costs for a new plant. Since the costs of shifting to new technology must be borne at some point, (since granfathering can’t be indefinite) it might be best not to grandfather at all so that society can benefit from lower pollution levels earlier. That’s just one of the arguments examined in this working paper.

Efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and control climate change implicate a wide range of social, moral, economic, and political issues, none of them simple or clear. But when regulators evaluate the desirability of climate change mitigation through cost-benefit analysis, one factor typically determines whether mitigation is justified: the discount rate or the rate at which future benefits are converted to their present value.

This working paper evaluates the four principal justifications for intergenerational discounting, which often are conflated in the literature. It shows that none of these justifications supports the prevalent approach of discounting benefits to future generations at the rate of return in financial markets and, more generally, that discounting cannot substitute for a moral theory setting forth our obligations to future generations.

An open Internet allows anyone with an idea and a domain name to add content to the web for all to use. It’s a system that most believe works very well, generating billions in economic benefits for the American public every year. This policy brief analyzes the economic uncertainties of weakening our current, open Internet and sees potential trouble ahead if it is not preserved.