In a new Cato white paper, Brink Lindsey considers the possibilities of assembling a political coalition aimed at trimming at least some kinds of excessive regulation [Arnold Kling, Coyote]:

Despite today’s polarized political atmosphere, it is possible to construct an ambitious and highly promising agenda of pro-growth policy reform that can command support across the ideological spectrum. Such an agenda would focus on policies whose primary effect is to inflate the incomes and wealth of the rich, the powerful, and the well-established by shielding them from market competition. A convenient label for these policies is “regressive regulation” — regulatory barriers to entry and competition that work to redistribute income and wealth up the socioeconomic scale. This paper identifies four major examples of regressive regulation: excessive monopoly privileges granted under copyright and patent law; restrictions on high-skilled immigration; protection of incumbent service providers under occupational licensing; and artificial scarcity created by land-use regulation.

Filed under: competition through regulation, copyright, immigration law, land use and zoning, occupational licensure, patent law, regulation and its reform