This article examines the cost of federal regulations for U.S. businesses and U.S. international competitiveness, as well as one proposal to address the issue, the Competitiveness Impact Statement (CIS). A review of the literature concludes that the lack of reliable data on the cost of regulation at the industry level leads to contradictory results. The authors call for better data collection across industries and countries in order to support cost-benefit analysis of proposed regulations. They describe a European model of data collection by businesses and business associations, and discuss U.S. organizations which could be candidates to lead such an effort.
