George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center

George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center
Name	George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center
Formation	2009
Type	Research center
Location	Washington, D.C.
Affiliation	George Washington University

Contents

George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center The Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University is a policy research center based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on regulatory analysis, cost-benefit review, and regulatory reform. It engages with scholars, officials, and practitioners from institutions such as U.S. Congress, Executive Office of the President, U.S. Department of Justice, White House Office of Management and Budget, and Congressional Research Service to inform debates on rulemaking and administrative law. The center has collaborated with organizations including American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Georgetown University.

History

The center was established in 2009 during the administration of Barack Obama amid renewed attention to regulatory review following high-profile initiatives by the Administrative Procedure Act-era agencies and the Office of Management and Budget. Early work intersected with scholarship from scholars affiliated with Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, and Princeton University on retrospective review and regulatory impact analysis. Over time the center has hosted events with participants from the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The center states its mission in terms of promoting evidence-based rulemaking and rigorous cost–benefit analysis akin to practices advocated by proponents of regulatory reform, drawing on methods from scholars at London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley. Research topics include regulatory impact analysis related to statutes such as the Administrative Procedure Act, Paperwork Reduction Act, and implications for markets overseen by the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Reserve System. The center's focus encompasses retrospective review, transparency in agency decisionmaking, and quantitative methods used by researchers at National Bureau of Economic Research, RAND Corporation, and Pew Research Center.

Programs include workshops, conferences, and fellowship offerings that have convened policymakers from the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, White House Counsel, and executive branch agencies along with academics from Michigan State University, Duke University, Northwestern University, and New York University. The center runs training directed at analysts from Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, U.S. Small Business Administration, and state-level regulators in jurisdictions such as California, New York (state), and Texas. It organizes speaker series featuring guests from Federal Aviation Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and think tanks including Mercatus Center and R Street Institute.

The center produces working papers, policy briefs, and technical reports cited alongside publications from Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Regulation & Governance, American Economic Review, and reports by Government Accountability Office. Outputs have addressed topics like regulatory accumulation, net benefits from major rules, and rulemaking timelines, often referencing case studies from agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and Department of Energy. The center has published commentaries intersecting with scholarship in outlets related to Yale Journal on Regulation, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, and the Stanford Law Review.

Funding for the center has come from a mix of university support and external grants and donations from foundations and organizations that have included Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and private donors with interests similar to philanthropic partners of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and MacArthur Foundation. Governance involves university-appointed directors and advisory board members drawn from law schools and economics departments at institutions such as Georgetown University Law Center, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School, and research organizations like Economic Policy Institute and Institute for Policy Integrity.

Affiliated scholars and fellows have included faculty with appointments or past roles at George Washington University Law School, Harvard Law School, University of Chicago Law School, Columbia Law School, Stanford University School of Law, Yale Law School, Oxford University, Cambridge University, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and research staff who moved to positions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Federal Trade Commission, Office of Management and Budget, and the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Alumni have gone on to roles in academia, consultancies, and agencies such as KPMG, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ernst & Young as well as to fellowships at American Bar Foundation and posts in legislative offices.

The center has faced critique and debate similar to controversies involving think tanks like Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, with commentators from Public Citizen, Consumer Federation of America, Center for Progressive Reform, and scholars at Boston University questioning funding transparency and the influence of donors on research agendas. Critics have compared its policy recommendations to those advanced in reports by Mercatus Center and Competitive Enterprise Institute, prompting responses defending academic independence and methodological rigor in publications and testimony before panels convened by the Administrative Conference of the United States and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.