ABSTRACT
Over the years, many attempts have been made to reform government regulation, but success has been limited. These efforts have been hampered by distrust on both sides of the regulatory debate. Since the 1970s there has been a strong and consistent effort to reform or eliminate economic regulations where competition adequately serves the public interest. The staffing of federal economic regulatory agencies is dwarfed by the much larger array of inspectors, reviewers, and other officials of federal agencies engaged in social regulation. The extensive regulatory reviews to which many new products are subjected in the United States inevitably raise the cost of product innovation and increase the uncertainty of financial success. Since 1974 every president of the United States has attempted to improve the regulatory process. President Gerald Ford launched an effort to modernize economic regulation, particularly with respect to rate regulation of the transportation and financial industries.
