"Compassion vs. Control: FDA Investigational Drug Regulation," by Dale
Gierenger
in Policy Analysis no. 72, May 20, 1986 (Washington, D.C.: Cato
Institute). Gierenger
subjects FDA drug regulation to critical scrutiny and offers a
free-market alternative.
Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation: The 1962 Amendments, by Sam
Peltzman (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1974). A
pioneering
study of the effects of state regulation of the drug industry, showing
how safety
regulations can actually decrease safety.
Searching for Safety, by Aaron Wildavsky (New Brunswick: Transaction
Books,
1988). A critique of conventional wisdom on risk analysis that is
critical of attempts
to eliminate risk through regulation, offering instead suggestions for a
broad range
of risk strategies compatible with the market.
Free to Choose, by Milton and Rose Friedman (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1980). Chapter 7 ("Who Protects the Consumer?") and Chapter
8
("Who Protects the Worker?") show how health and safety regulation often
results
in the opposite of its ostensible end and how the stated ends of
regulation can be
better met through voluntary market means.
Unnatural Monopolies: The Case for Deregulating Public Utilities, ed. by
Robert W.
Poole, Jr. (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1985). Includes useful
essays on the
economics of natural monopoly, private contracting, electric utilities,
and antitrust
law and deregulation.
"The Perils of Regulation: A Market-Process Approach," by Israel Kirzner,
in his
Discovery and the Capitalist Process (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1985).
Shows how state regulation interferes with the beneficient operation of
the market
process of entrepreneurial discovery.
Liability: The Legal Revolution and Its Consequences, by Peter W. Huber
(New York:
Basic Books, 1988). Shows how contract law can deal with problems of
safety and
liability.
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