Regulatory Benefits Research Articles

MicroRNA binding sites in the coding region of mRNAs: extending the repertoire of post-transcriptional gene regulation.

It is well established that microRNAs (miRNAs) induce mRNA degradation by binding to 3' untranslated regions (UTRs). The functionality of sites in the coding domain sequence (CDS), on the other hand, remains under discussion. Such sites have limited impact on target mRNA abundance and recent work suggests that miRNAs bind in the CDS to inhibit translation. What then could be the regulatory benefits of translation inhibition through CDS targeting compared to mRNA degradation following 3' UTR binding? We propose that these domain-dependent effects serve to diversify the functional repertoire of post-transcriptional gene expression control. Possible regulatory benefits may include tuning the time-scale and magnitude of post-transcriptional regulation, regulating protein abundance depending on or independently of the cellular state, and regulation of the protein abundance of alternative splice variants. Finally, we review emerging evidence that these ideas may generalize to RNA-binding proteins beyond miRNAs and Argonaute proteins.

Breaking Bad? The Uneasy Case for Regulatory Breakeven Analysis

Often regulatory benefits can be hard to quantify because they deal with harms that are not traded in markets or because the probability of harm is not well understood. Breakeven analysis offers one plausible way of addressing the problem. But it is no panacea. It may fail to improve the rationality of decisions, especially in hard cases. Alternative approaches may have greater advantages. Thus, the argument for breakeven analysis remains unproven.

Quality Control: A Reply to Professor Sunstein

Unless cost-benefit analysis finds room for the nonquantifiable and nonmonetizable benefits of regulation, it will skew systematically against government action to address social problems that have significant nonquantifiable and nonmonetizable dimensions. In The Limits of Quantification—drawn from the 2013 Brennan Center Jorde Symposium at Berkeley Law—Professor Cass R. Sunstein looks for a way out of this quandary. But the solutions he explicitly or implicitly embraces—a meaningful recognition of qualitative benefits like human dignity, a redoubled effort to quantify and monetize regulatory benefits, and breakeven analysis—fall short. Breakeven analysis is too selectively deployed to be the neutral tool Sunstein seeks. Fitting qualitative values, like dignity, into the cost-benefit mold can be both legally gratuitous and conceptually confused. Monetizing heretofore nonmonetized regulatory benefits—like preventing prison rape—entails a complete redefinition of the problem at hand. The limits of quantification remain severe, undermining claims that cost-benefit analysis can play an evenhanded role in the evaluation of agency rules.

Trade-Offs Between Anti-Aging Dietary Supplementation and Exercise

In otherwise healthy adults, moderate aerobic exercise extends life span and likely health span by 2-6 years. Exercise improves blood sugar regulation, and resistance exercise increases or maintains muscle mass and is associated with improved cognitive function. On the other hand, evidence for anti-oxidant supplements increasing longevity in humans is lacking. On the contrary, transient hormetic increases in reactive oxygen species (ROS), for example, associated with exercise, are actually associated with increased mammalian health span and life span. Recent studies in humans suggest that anti-oxidants such as vitamins C, E, resveratrol, and acetyl-N-cysteine blunt the beneficial effects of exercise on glucose sensitivity and blood sugar regulation, likely through direct inhibition of ROS signaling. Alternately, other studies suggest that vitamin C has beneficial effects on exercise-associated dysfunction, inhibiting exercise-induced bronchioconstriction. These data suggest that there are tradeoffs between potential benefits and harm from anti-oxidant dietary supplementation. Specific biomolecular interactions for each antioxidant also will be important. Omega-3 (n-3) polyunsaturated fattty acids (PUFAs) have anti-inflammatory activity that is not mediated through direct ROS inhibition. Although data are limited in humans, n-3 PUFAs do not seem to blunt blood sugar regulatory benefits of aerobic exercise and actually increase anabolic activity in skeletal muscle. However, another kind of tradeoff may exist with PUFAs, at least for men. A recent large clinical trial demonstrates an association of omega-3 fatty acids blood levels with increased incidence of prostate cancer, especially aggressive prostate cancer. Together these results suggest that there are significant tradeoffs in the use of dietary supplementation for prevention and treatment of diseases associated with aging. Such tradeoffs may result from underlying intertwined homeostatic mechanisms. For most individuals, moderate exercise is of significant benefit. Careful attention to individual and family medical history and personal genomic data may prove essential to make wise dietary and supplement choices to be combined with exercise.

Gambling Over Growth: Economic Uncertainty, Discounting, and Regulatory Policy

Uncertainty about a possible harm is obviously relevant in deciding how much to regulate. More surprisingly, however, risks that are completely unrelated to the subject of the regulation can also be important. In particular, uncertainties about the future trajectory and distribution of economic growth have a substantial impact on the discount rate, which in turn favors additional investment in preventing long-term harms. Although issues relating to discounting are notoriously difficult and controversial, an increasingly prevalent view among economists supports the use of declining interest rates because of uncertainties about future economic growth. A similar argument supports declining rates when the distribution of growth is unequal or the future distribution is uncertain. This paper explains the foundations of these conclusions and their application to regulatory decisions involving climate change, carcinogens, and infrastructure safety. In general, current U.S. practices undervalue future regulatory benefits due to improper discounting. Regulations to protect environmental quality, public health, and safety may have additional value as hedges against uncertainties and disparities involving future economic growth.

The Impact of Disclosures of Internal Control Weaknesses and Remediations on Investors' Perceptions of Earnings Quality

We hypothesize and find that firms making SOX-mandated disclosures of material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting (ICOFR) exhibit lower investor-perceived earnings quality (IPEQ) than nondisclosers. We measure IPEQ using e-loading, a market-returns–based representation of earnings quality developed by Ecker, Francis, Kim, Olsson, and Schipper (2006). Firms do not exhibit decreases in IPEQ after initially disclosing material weaknesses. This is consistent with investors having anticipated ICOFR strength based on observable firm characteristics. However, firms exhibit increases in IPEQ after receiving their first clean audit reports that confirm the remediation of previously disclosed weaknesses. This indicates that, although investors do not find initial weakness disclosures to be incrementally informative, SOX motivates firms to remediate weak controls and provides a venue for credible remediation disclosures, thus enhancing investors’ perception of financial reporting reliability. These findings are consistent with the existence of regulatory benefits associated with SOX’s internal control disclosure and audit requirements.

Philippines – Taxes on Distilled Spirits:Like Products and Market Definition

AbstractThis paper provides a legal–economic analysis of the Appellate Body decision inPhilippines – Taxes on Distilled Spirits(Philippines–Spirits). InPhilippines–Spirits, the Panel and the Appellate Body had an opportunity to consider again the scope of ‘like products’ and of ‘directly competitive or substitutable products’ under Article III:2 of GATT. The Panel and Appellate Body followed the Border Tax Adjustments factors in order to determine whether the products were sufficiently similar. The Appellate Body explicitly extended its jurisprudence from other areas of Article III to a like-products determination under the first sentence of Article III:2: this analysis is to be focused on the degree of competition between the imported and domestic products. We observe that the effect of different taxation on domestic products is affected by the degree of substitution between products as well as competitive conditions, whereas the Appellate Body seems to focus on the former and ignore the latter. We also question some of the Panel and Appellate Body interpretations of the evidence regarding the degree of substitution between products. Overall, we find that even if there may be a segment in which foreign and domestic products compete, the reported evidence in this case would seem to be consistent with the view that for the bulk of the market, foreign and domestic items are distant substitutes.Putting aside the jurisprudence, a methodologically sound finding regarding substitution (and competition) seems necessary, but not sufficient, for a finding of inefficient discrimination. In order to find inefficient discrimination, there must also be a finding that the nonprotectionist benefits that may arise from the national regulation are not sufficient to justify the discriminatory action, otherwise, rational regulation that is globally efficient might be invalidated, inappropriately restricting the national right to regulate. In the present case, the Philippines articulated no nonprotectionist rationale for its distinctions. Existing WTO jurisprudence in this area prior to the Appellate Body decision inUS–Clove Cigarettes(in the context of Article 2.1 of the technical barriers to trade agreement) has only hinted at the additional focus on the justificatory role of nonprotectionist regulatory benefits, yet an explicit and appropriately contextualized reference to the nonprotectionist rationale, if any, of regulation seems to be a necessary part of decision-making.

Too Soft Or Too Severe? Enforceable Undertakings and the Regulatory Dilemma Facing the Fair Work Ombudsman

This article reports on the use of enforceable undertakings by the Australian employment standards enforcement agency, the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), and its predecessor, the Workplace Ombudsman. Enforceable undertakings are used by the FWO as an alternative enforcement tool to court litigation in relation to breaches of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), which regulates wages, working hours and other minimum employment conditions. Proponents of enforceable undertakings argue that they deliver value to regulatory agencies as a responsive alternative to traditional, punitive enforcement action. On the other hand, critics have raised concerns about the accountability and effectiveness of this enforcement tool. The authors provide a critical analysis of the FWO's use of enforceable undertakings, including consideration of the decision-making process, content, monitoring and enforcement of undertakings. The analysis is based on a review of all enforceable undertakings concluded in the period from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2012, as well as qualitative interviews with approximately 60 inspectors, managers and lawyers of the FWO, and a number of specialist workplace relations lawyers. The article reveals that the FWO has made limited but promising use of enforceable undertakings in the review period. Through deployment of enforceable undertakings, the FWO has demonstrated that it has a mix of regulatory approaches available to it that are consistent with the key principles of responsive regulation. The number of enforceable undertakings accepted by the FWO, however, remains fairly limited. We set out a number of ways in which the regulator may maximise the utilisation of enforceable undertakings, and more fully realise the regulatory benefits of this particular compliance tool.

Regulatory Benefits: Examining Agency Justification for New Regulations

This study attempts to shed some light on whether the benefits claimed by the federal agencies are likely to be achieved. In contrast to other validation studies, the study focuses on the agencies’ benefit claims rather than the actually measured benefits. Since agencies justify their regulatory decisions based on expected benefits, examining the quality of these claims is important. To do that, the study focuses on two aspects of the agencies’ regulatory impact analysis: (1) whether the analysis demonstrates the existence of a systemic failure, and (2) whether the analysis provides a program theory that explains how the regulation would lead to beneficial outcomes. The study uses the Mercatus Center’s Regulatory Report Card to construct its dataset.

The State of the Union: Toward a Biopolitics of Marriage

The State of the Union: Toward a Biopolitics of Marriage

Mental representations of attachment figures facilitate recovery following upsetting autobiographical memory recall.

A growing literature shows that even the symbolic presence of an attachment figure facilitates the regulation of negative affect triggered by external stressors. Yet, in daily life, pernicious stressors are often internally generated--recalling an upsetting experience reliably increases negative affect, rumination, and susceptibility to physical and psychological health problems. The present research provides the first systematic examination of whether activating the mental representation of an attachment figure enhances the regulation of affect triggered by thinking about upsetting memories. Using 2 different techniques for priming attachment figure representations and 2 types of negative affect measures (explicit and implicit), activating the mental representation of an attachment figure (vs. an acquaintance or stranger) after recalling an upsetting memory enhanced recovery--eliminating the negative effects of the memory recall (Studies 1-3). In contrast, activating the mental representation of an attachment figure before recalling an upsetting memory had no such effect (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, activating the mental representation of an attachment figure after thinking about upsetting memories reduced negative thinking in a stream of consciousness task, and the magnitude of the attachment-induced affective recovery effects as assessed with explicit affect measures predicted mental and physical health in daily life (Study 3). Finally, a meta-analysis of the 3 studies (Study 4) showed that the regulatory benefits conferred by the mental representation of an attachment figure were weaker for individuals high on attachment avoidance. The implications of these findings for attachment, emotion regulation, and mental and physical health are discussed.

The regulatory benefits of high levels of affect perception accuracy: A process analysis of reactions to stressors in daily life.

Individuals attuned to affective signals from the environment may possess an advantage in the emotion-regulation realm. In two studies (total n = 151), individual differences in affective perception accuracy were assessed in an objective, performance-based manner. Subsequently, the same individuals completed daily diary protocols in which daily stressor levels were reported as well as problematic states shown to be stress-reactive in previous studies. In both studies, individual differences in affect perception accuracy interacted with daily stressor levels to predict the problematic outcomes. Daily stressors precipitated problematic reactions--whether depressive feelings (study 1) or somatic symptoms (study 2)--at low levels of affect perception accuracy, but did not do so at high levels of affect perception accuracy. The findings support a regulatory view of such perceptual abilities. Implications for understanding emotion regulation processes, emotional intelligence, and individual differences in reactivity are discussed.

Perpetuating Puffery: An Analysis of the Composition of OMB's Reported Benefits of Regulation

The Office of Management and Budget reports that the benefits of regulations issued over the last decade exceed the costs by an order of magnitude. But how accurate are those estimates? Over 80 percent of total reported regulatory benefits derive from three sources: (1) reductions of fine particles in the air as a direct result of regulation, (2) the co-benefits achieved from ancillary reductions in these particles as an indirect result of regulation, and (3) private savings for which agencies have offered no market failure explanation. This article critically examines the approaches and assumptions behind these estimates, and suggests that the reported benefits should be viewed with some skepticism.

Fair value reclassifications of financial assets during the financial crisis

This study examines whether reclassifications of financial assets out of fair value categories during a market downturn are associated with regulatory benefits and informational costs. We find that the severity of regulatory capital restrictions and the lack of prudential filters for unrealized fair value changes are positively associated with a bank’s reclassification choice. For a small group of banks that have a high reclassification likelihood and the greatest need for additional regulatory capital, we observe a positive stock market reaction around the announcement of the new accounting option. For another group of banks that were initially not expected to reclassify, we find that abnormal stock returns around the announcement of the accounting choice increase in the regulatory capital effect of the reclassification. Finally, we document a positive association between banks’ bid-ask spreads and the reclassification choice for those banks that do not provide complete IFRS 7 disclosures about the unrecognized fair value changes.

Intermediate Effect Biomarkers--Alternatives to Direct Concentration- Response Data for Regulatory Benefits Analyses

Perceived needs for extensive chemical-specific toxicological information have impeded efforts to assess risks and evaluate likely public health protection benefits of possible standards for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). This paper discusses opportunities to use effects of HAPs on early effect biomarkers, such as birth weights, to predict likely changes in rare quantal effects of concern that would be relevant for the quantification of likely regulatory benefits from exposure reductions. In the birth weight example, even modest exposures to common air pollutants can be seen as producing a kind of tax on the limited resources available to the fetus to grow and develop. In contrast to teratogenic effects, dose response relationships for fetal growth restriction in animals are often nearly linear, suggesting that the developing fetus may not generally have untapped ”functional reserve capacity“ that is expected to buffer the effects of modest exposures to toxicants in the traditional toxicological paradigm. Given this mechanistic perspective, supported in part by parallel dose response relationships between reported cigarette smoking and both birth weight and infant mortality, restriction on fetal growth can be associated with changes in quantal end effects of concern that are more difficult to assess directly in epidemiological studies.

Intermediate Effect Biomarkers--Alternatives to Direct Concentration- Response Data for Regulatory Benefits Analyses

Intermediate Effect Biomarkers--Alternatives to Direct Concentration- Response Data for Regulatory Benefits Analyses

Evaluation of the Cardiovascular Effects of Methylmercury Exposures: Current Evidence Supports Development of a Dose–Response Function for Regulatory Benefits Analysis

BackgroundThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has estimated the neurological benefits of reductions in prenatal methylmercury (MeHg) exposure in past assessments of rules controlling mercury (Hg) emissions. A growing body of evidence suggests that MeHg exposure can also lead to increased risks of adverse cardiovascular impacts in exposed populations.Data extractionThe U.S. EPA assembled the authors of this article to participate in a workshop, where we reviewed the current science concerning cardiovascular health effects of MeHg exposure via fish and seafood consumption and provided recommendations concerning whether cardiovascular health effects should be included in future Hg regulatory impact analyses.Data synthesisWe found the body of evidence exploring the link between MeHg and acute myocardial infarction (MI) to be sufficiently strong to support its inclusion in future benefits analyses, based both on direct epidemiological evidence of an MeHg–MI link and on MeHg’s association with intermediary impacts that contribute to MI risk. Although additional research in this area would be beneficial to further clarify key characteristics of this relationship and the biological mechanisms that underlie it, we consider the current epidemiological literature sufficiently robust to support the development of a dose–response function.ConclusionsWe recommend the development of a dose–response function relating MeHg exposures with MIs for use in regulatory benefits analyses of future rules targeting Hg air emissions.

Value in technology evolution: case mobile peer‐to‐peer communications

PurposeMobile peer‐to‐peer communications is an essential phase in the evolution of mobile communications technologies, motivating this research which aims to focus on how established industry stakeholders and new entrants can adapt themselves to the new situation.Design/methodology/approachBased on existing literature, the authors identified three distinctive evolution paths for mobile peer‐to‐peer communications and developed an analysis framework for their comparison. The authors validated the analysis by conducting a questionnaire study among domain experts, and analyzed its results using statistical analysis.FindingsInternet‐driven evolution has high value proposition, is profitable and has subscription fees as an important revenue model. Telecom‐driven evolution creates value, leverages markets, leverages competence, is likely to encounter regulatory intervention and benefits all customer segments. Proprietary evolution has a successful revenue model, results in alliances of competitors and is competence‐enhancing to mobile device vendors.Research limitations/implicationsFuture work consists mainly of analyzing quantitatively the implications of the new technologies when they become readily available and evaluating the value analysis framework in other applicable cases.Practical implicationsInternet‐driven evolution enables new business opportunities to independent service operators and equipment vendors by enabling opportunities in profiting from sales of advanced devices and networks. Telecom‐driven evolution benefits mostly incumbent mobile network operators. Proprietary evolution enables limited competition against incumbent actors by independent service operators.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first journal publications on mobile peer‐to‐peer communications from a holistic techno‐economic point of view, beneficial to both academics and practitioners.

Fair Value Reclassifications of Financial Assets During the Financial Crisis

This study examines whether reclassifications of financial assets out of fair value categories during a market downturn are associated with regulatory benefits and informational costs. We find that the severity of regulatory capital restrictions and the lack of prudential filters for unrealized fair value changes are positively associated with a bank’s reclassification choice. For a small group of banks that have a high reclassification likelihood and the greatest need for additional regulatory capital, we observe a positive stock market reaction around the announcement of the new accounting option. For another group of banks that were initially not expected to reclassify, we find that abnormal stock returns around the announcement of the accounting choice increase in the regulatory capital effect of the reclassification. Finally, we document a positive association between banks’ bid-ask spreads and the reclassification choice for those banks that do not provide complete IFRS 7 disclosures about the unrecognized fair value changes.

Intergroup contact facilitates physiological recovery following stressful intergroup interactions

A growing body of research has demonstrated the importance of intergroup contact in reducing fear, threat and anxiety in intergroup domains. Here we focus on the regulatory benefits of intergroup contact. We hypothesized that past intergroup contact would facilitate recovery from a stressful intergroup evaluation. White and Black participants completed a stressful evaluative task in the presence of two White or two Black interviewers while autonomic nervous system and hormonal responses were assessed. When examining how participants recovered after the stressful task, intergroup contact predicted faster physiological recovery for both autonomic and neuroendocrine reactivity. The importance of recovery from stress for physiological resilience in diverse contexts is discussed.