Jeremy Grantham

Prediction · Economics and markets

“Third, removing regulations here and there will, as mentioned, lower corporate costs in the short term.”

Jeremy Grantham, GMO co-founder, letter author · 2017 · 1Q 2017 GMO Quarterly Letter: Up At Night (GMO)

Removing regulations here and there will lower corporate costs in the short term.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

The prediction is that the piecemeal deregulation then under way (US, 2017) would lower corporate costs in the short term, judged over roughly two years (to end-2019). True: credible estimates (OIRA/OMB regulatory cost accounting, independent analyses or academic studies) show that regulations repealed or relaxed in 2017–2019 produced net reductions in companies' compliance or operating costs within that period. Mostly true: cost reductions are documented but small, or confined to a few sectors, while still being reductions. Mixed: the evidence is split, with some deregulatory actions cutting costs and others offset (e.g. by uncertainty or litigation costs), and no clear net direction. Mostly false: the estimated savings were negligible or mostly reversed by courts within the period. False: credible evidence shows corporate regulatory costs did not fall, or rose, as a result of those actions over the period.

Evidence

1. Deregulation, Reregulation, and the Economy (Nicolae) Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research (gspublishing.com) · 20 January 2021

   “All of these sources suggest that the impact of regulatory policy changes over the last four years has been limited at a macroeconomic level.”

2. Deregulation, Reregulation, and the Economy (Nicolae) Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research (gspublishing.com) · 20 January 2021

   “Several measures suggest that federal regulation stopped expanding but did not substantially decrease in the past four years.”

3. Deregulation: Reducing the Burden of Regulatory Costs - GovInfo U.S. Government (Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 2019 chapter 2)

   “in fiscal year 2017, deregulatory actions saved $8.1 billion in regulatory costs (in net present value), and in 2018, they saved $23 billion.”

4. OIRA’s Regulatory Reform Report for Fiscal Year 2019 | Regulatory Studies Center | Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center · 19 December 2019

   “OIRA’s report announces that agencies issued 150 deregulatory actions and 35 regulatory actions, producing $13.5 billion in regulatory cost savings in 2019 present value terms.”

5. OIRA’s Regulatory Reform Report for Fiscal Year 2019 | Regulatory Studies Center | Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration | Columbian College of Arts & Sciences George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center · 19 December 2019

   “Furthermore, many deregulatory actions have been unsuccessful in the courts, but OIRA’s reporting does not appear to adjust for cost savings that were never realized.”

6. The Deregulation Deception University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (Coglianese, Sarin, Shapiro; Penn Law Legal Scholarship Repository) · 21 June 2021

   “Furthermore, we search for but find no credible indication that deregulation under President Trump ever generated the dramatic economic benefits that the Administration claimed.”

Reasoning

Official cost accounting reports net regulatory cost savings from deregulatory actions: $8.1 billion in FY2017 and $23 billion in FY2018 (E3), and $13.5 billion in FY2019 (E4), all in present value. Independent analysts describe the effect as limited. They say regulation stopped expanding but did not shrink much (E1, E2) and that the claimed large economic benefits did not show up (E6). GWU also notes that the OIRA totals are not adjusted for actions that failed in court (E5). Taken together, the evidence points to estimated cost reductions in official regulatory cost accounting [E3][E4] that were modest at a macroeconomic level [E1][E2] and may be overstated because court losses were not adjusted for [E5], which fits the "mostly true" category in the criteria.

Cite this claim

Jeremy Grantham, “Removing regulations here and there will lower corporate costs in the short term.” (said 2017). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_ff737e421bd2, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ff737e421bd2