In 1984, Portney argued that "[w]e should scrutinize proposed reforms of the rulemaking process every bit as carefully as the regulations that process produces." In the 23 years since then, the regulatory process on the federal level has been continuously reformed by statute, by executive order, and by directives from the OMB. Despite the extensive debate on the need for these reforms, there ha...

We use panel data on the number of new firm registrations in 92 countries to study how the magnitude of reforms affects its impact on new firm registrations. We find that small reforms, in general less than 40% reduction in costs, days or procedures required for business registration, do not have a significant effect on new firm creation. This suggests that small reforms do not have the intende...

A simple model of an open exchange economy with two commodities is used to investigate the relative merits of small and large reforms: reforms are represented as movements in the relative price of the two commodities, achieved by tightening or relaxing quotas. Three approaches, based on majority voting, the costs of compensation, and social welfare, are used to compare the merits of small and l...

This paper reviews Latin American neoliberal health reforms sponsored by the IMF and the World Bank, and analyzes the impact on the region of decentralization and privatization, the two basic components of the reforms. The second part of the paper examines in some detail the Chilean and Colombian reforms, the two countries that have implemented closely the principles of the neoliberal reform. T...