Promoting Regulatory Prediction

36 Pages Posted: 25 May 2021 Last revised: 27 Jan 2022

See all articles by Jonathan S. Masur

Jonathan S. Masur

University of Chicago - Law School

Jonathan Remy Nash

Emory University School of Law

Date Written: May 24, 2021

Abstract

It is essential for environmental protection that private actors be able to anticipate government regulation. If, for instance, the Biden Administration is planning to tighten regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that private companies anticipate this regulatory change now, not a few years from now after they have constructed even more coal- and gas-fired power plants. Those additional power plants will mean more irreversible greenhouse gases, and they can be politically challenging to shutter once built. The point is general to private actors making decisions in the shadow of potential government regulation. Better information about future government actions is thus critical, for the benefit of both private actors and society at large. In this Article, we consider market-based and non-market-based means by which to generate information about future government action. We find no perfect answer.

We consider three market-based solutions—prediction markets, the use of equity markets to hedge against future government action, and machine-learning and predictive technologies—and three government-based solutions—greater transparency, the development of intellectual property rights in predictive information, and prediction-forcing regulation, which is regulation that requires private actors to make public predictions about future government action. None of these is a panacea. The market-based solutions founder on the limitations and thinness of markets. Government-based solutions come with significant structural downsides related to the division of authority among different levels of government (federal versus state versus local) and different branches of government at each level (executive versus legislative). We conclude that prediction-forcing regulation may be the most promising avenue, though it too is likely not a full solution.

Keywords: environmental law, regulation, prediction markets. intellectual property, government transparency, securities regulation

JEL Classification: K22, K23, K32

Suggested Citation

Masur, Jonathan S. and Nash, Jonathan, Promoting Regulatory Prediction (May 24, 2021). Indiana Law Journal, Vol 97, 203 (2022), University of Chicago Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper No. 930, Emory Legal Studies Research Paper No. 21-16, U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 780, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3852126 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3852126

Jonathan S. Masur

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773.702.5188 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/masur/

Jonathan Nash (Contact Author)

Emory University School of Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
94
Abstract Views
1,272
Rank
499,344
PlumX Metrics