In this week’s episode of the Surprisingly Free Podcast, I talk to Bruce Yandle, Dean Emeritus at Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Sciences. We talk about a public choice puzzle: how do you explain the explosion of social regulation in the 1970s at the same time we saw an explosion in economic deregulation? Yandle thinks it might have to do with the advent of national television networks. National networks allowed national brands to develop. Firms behind national brands had an interest in deregulated transportation and telecommunications networks, but at the same time had an interest in seeing uniform federal safety and environmental regulations. We also talk about the decline of common law and the growth of code law, and the death (and return) of good beer in America.
Do check out the interview, and consider subscribing to the show on iTunes. Past guests have included James Grimmelman on online harassment and the Google Books case, Michael Geist on ACTA, and Tom Hazlett on spectrum reform.
MP3 File: Yandle on the rise of national TV and the spread of social regulation
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