The Regulators' Budget: Tracking Regulation through Government Outlays and Employment

The “Regulators’ Budget” provides two of the proxy measures often used to get a sense of the growth and size of U.S. regulation - the fiscal outlays and the personnel devoted to administering federal regulatory agencies. Analyzing the federal personnel and expenditures necessary to develop and enforce regulations provides a way to track regulatory trends. These data offer a proxy for the scope of regulatory activity and costs, and provide insights into the composition and evolution of regulation over time. By including resources devoted to both developing new regulations and supporting and enforcing existing regulations, the Regulators’ Budget attempts to be a comprehensive account of the U.S. government resources involved in maintaining the regulatory state.
Susan E. Dudley is the founder of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, which works to improve regulatory policy through research, education, and outreach. She is a senior scholar with the Center and a distinguished professor of practice in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. She is a past president of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis, a senior fellow with the Administrative Conference of the United States, and former chair of the Regulatory Transparency Project’s Regulatory Process working group. From April 2007 through January 2009, Professor Dudley served as the presidentially-appointed Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Sarah Hay is a policy analyst in the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center. She studies the Congressional Review Act (CRA) and public participation in the regulatory process. Her research on the CRA has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on C-SPAN. She also assists with data collection and data visualization for the Regulatory Studies Center’s regulatory data project, Reg Stats.