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22 Regulation 5 (1999)
Bootleggers and Baptists in Retrospect

handle is hein.journals/rcatorbg22 and id is 127 raw text is: ENVIRONMENT AND RISK The marriage of high-flown values and narrow interests continues to thrive Bootleggers and Baptists in Retrospect BY BRUCE YANDLE OOTLEGGERS AND BAPTISTS: THE EDUCATION OF A Regulatory Economist appeared in the Viewpoint column of Regulation in 1983. The piece, written when I was executive director of the Federal Trade Commission, reflected my brief experience as a government economist and offered a perhaps novel but crude theory of the demand for and supply of social regulation. Economists and legal scholars have called on the theory to explain things as diverse as antitrust and NAFTA. One economist went so far as restate the theory as a mathematical model, giving it some stature in the eyes of those who otherwise might have thought less of it. Now, some 16 years later, what can we say about the theory of bootleggers and Baptists? THE THEORY AND ITS NAME HERE IS THE ESSENCE OF THE THEORY: DURABLE SOCIAL regulation evolves when it is demanded by both of two dis- tinctly different groups. Baptists point to the moral high ground and give vital and vocal endorsement of laudable public benefits promised by a desired regulation. Baptists flourish when their moral message forms a visible founda- tion for political action. Bootleggers are much less visible but no less vital. Bootleggers, who expect to profit from the very regulatory restrictions desired by Baptists, grease the political machinery with some of their expected proceeds. They are simply in it for the money. The theory's name draws on colorful tales of states' efforts to regulate alcoholic beverages by banning Sunday sales at legal outlets. Baptists fervently endorsed such actions Bruce Yandle is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Economics at Clemson University, and senior associate at the Political Economy Research Center. on moral grounds. Bootleggers tolerated the actions glee- fully because their effect was to limit competition. It is worth noting that it is the details of a regulation that usually win the endorsement of bootleggers, not just the broader principle that may matter most to Baptists. Thus, for instance, bootleggers would not support restrictions on the Sunday consumption of alcoholic beverages, although Baptists might. Bootleggers want to limit competition, not intake. Important to the theory is the notion that bootleg- gers can rely on Baptists to monitor enforcement of the restrictions that benefit bootleggers. BOOTLEGGERS, BAPTISTS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS ASPECT OF B&B THEORY IS SEEN vividly in the federal environmental regulations that replaced common law with command-and-control enforcement of technology or specification standards, rather than call for per- formance standards or use emissions taxes and other eco- nomic incentives to reduce environmental harm. Specifi- cation standards generally set stricter limits for new and REGULATION * VOLUME 22, No. 3

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