Title: AEI Reg-Markets.org

Source/Sponsoring Agency: AEI Center for Regulatory and Market Studies

URL: http://www.reg-markets.org/

Date Checked: 3/4/2010      Status: Active

Date Annotated: 2/18/2010

Topics: Administrative Law; Economics

Other keywords: Market regulation; Deregulation

Contents: Designed to serve as the face of the AEI (American Enterprise Institute) Center for Regulatory and Market Studies, the Reg-Markets Center was established in 2008 to serve as an “independent voice in policy debates.” The Center’s primary objective is to create a better understanding of the contribution that markets, laws and regulations make to economic well-being. Substantially furthering their goal is an extensive collection of regulatory impact analysis from the public, private and non-profit sectors. The Center’s website provides access to two major databases of publications in this regard. The first includes analysis in the form of articles, working papers, and various studies pertaining to regulation. It is organized and cross-referenced by topic, author, type and date. Nearly all materials are available in both PDF and html format and each is accompanied by an abstract. Primary topics including environment, health and safety, and technology and industry are further divided into numerous subtopics. Materials are additionally separated into those pertaining to regulatory impact analysis and those pertaining to regulatory reform. An additional category is available for “other topics,” which includes such matters as Amici Briefs, Conflicts of Interest, Developing Countries, Real Estate, the War on Terrorism and more. There is no charge for accessing materials. The Center’s second database provided access to regulatory impact analyses (RIAs) which, as they explain, are required by executive order to be performed by agencies whose activities are anticipated to cost over $100 million. Accompanying the RIAs are relevant Federal Register notices. The Center additionally links to the few government agencies that make their own RIAs publically available on their individual websites. These materials too are freely available in PDF format. In addition to the databases, the Center also provides a tab that allows readers to freely download relevant books for electronic reading. The site as a whole provides a quick search feature that allows visitors to run queries of keywords in titles, authors and abstracts. A search tab provides for a slightly more advanced search option in which one’s results may be limited and sorted. Visitors to the site may subscribe to the Center’s newsletter by entering an email address. The Center invites authors to submit their works to be published in its databases while still allowing them to retain full rights to their papers so that they may also be submitted to outside journals. The paper submission process and an accompanying electronic form are available through the publications portion of the website. The Center publicly tracks downloads of each individual publication they offer; judging by the numbers, the Center’s website is a heavily used resource.

Author of Annotation: A. Emerson