Regulate, regulate

Why uncertainty about government regulation is stifling job creation:

In President Obama's first two years in office the federal government issued 132 “economically significant” rules, according to Susan Dudley of George Washington University. (“Economically significant” means that either the rule’s costs, or its benefits, exceed $100m a year.)

That is about 40% more than the annual rate under both George Bush junior and Bill Clinton. Many rules associated with the newly passed health-care and financial-reform laws are still to come.

The regulatory workforce has grown 16% in Mr Obama’s first two years in office, to 276,429, while private employment has fallen.

Unquantifiable is the innovation that may be deterred by regulation, The Economist reports. Michael Mandel, a scholar at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank, says some of Mr Obama’s rules, though well intentioned, interfere with the most dynamic parts of the economy.

Rules meant to deter the abuse of student aid by for-profit colleges could stunt the growth of college courses taught over the internet; tighter conditions on drug approvals, prompted by much-publicised scandals, raise the cost of drug research, especially for small companies; and “net neutrality” rules could expose internet-access providers to stifling litigation.