Scholars of the US regulatory process routinely assert that rulemaking is “ossified”—that it has become so encumbered with procedural constraints that it is difficult for agencies to issue socially desirable regulations. Yet, this claim has rarely been subject to empirical testing, and this is particularly true at the sub‐federal (i.e., US state) level. But the same factors that allegedly cause ossification in federal agencies also exist in the states. Using original survey data from 1460 agency leaders from across all 50 states, we present evidence suggesting that state agencies issue numerous rules and appear to do so quickly. We then focus on the procedural constraints that supposedly drive ossification and present some of the first evidence questioning the argument at the state level. We conclude that fears about the supposed tendency of procedural oversight mechanisms on the ability to regulate may be exaggerated.

中文翻译：

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美国各州的程序限制和监管僵化


研究美国监管程序的学者经常断言，规则制定已经“僵化”——它已经受到程序性限制的阻碍，以至于各机构很难发布社会期望的法规。然而，这种说法很少经过实证检验，在联邦以下（即美国各州）层面尤其如此。但据称导致联邦机构僵化的同样因素也存在于各州。利用来自全美 50 个州的 1460 名机构领导人的原始调查数据，我们提供的证据表明，各州机构颁布了大量规则，而且执行速度似乎很快。然后，我们将重点放在据称会导致僵化的程序限制上，并提出一些初步证据来质疑州一级的论点。我们的结论是，对程序监督机制对监管能力的所谓趋势的担忧可能被夸大了。