TY - JOUR AU - Mulligan, Casey B AU - Shleifer, Andrei TI - Population and Regulation JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 10234 PY - 2004 Y2 - January 2004 DO - 10.3386/w10234 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10234 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10234.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Casey B. Mulligan University of Chicago Department of Economics 1126 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: 773/702-9017 Fax: 773/702-8490 E-Mail: c-mulligan@uchicago.edu Andrei Shleifer Department of Economics Harvard University Littauer Center M-9 Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/495-5046 Fax: 617/496-1708 E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu AB - We present a model of efficient regulation along the lines of Demsetz (1967). In this model, setting up and running regulatory institutions takes a fixed cost, and therefore jurisdictions with larger populations affected by a given regulation are more likely to have them. Consistent with the model, we find that higher population U.S. states have more pages of legislation and adopt particular laws earlier in their history. We also find that specific types of regulation, including the regulation of entry, the regulation of labor, and the military draft are more extensive in countries with larger populations. Overall, the data show that population is an empirically important determinant of regulation. ER -