ABSTRACT
The free-market revolution prompted EU and US trucking deregulation, with deleterious consequences for truck drivers. Regulatory systems are similar, having replaced institutional regulation with markets. However, while nationwide fuel taxes fund US state-level regulatory enforcement, EU enforcement is uneven because it relies on discretionary national-level funding. We argue that lax EU enforcement and east-west regulatory arbitrage — enabled by institutional asymmetry between economic and social integration — creates a race to the bottom in the EU that is worse than in the US. Poorly paid drivers from Central and Eastern Europe and beyond replace Western European drivers, damaging trucking — and trucking jobs — throughout wealthier EU member states.
