Despite its passage some time ago, recent attention has been brought to the impending implementation of a Washington, D.C., regulation that will require all professional childcare workers to have a college degree. This has raised a great hue and cry as it will ban a number of existing childcare workers from their chosen profession as well as having the effect of dramatically increasing the cost of childcare in the District — which is, incidentally, already incredibly high when compared to the rest of the country. Unintended consequences happen all the time in everyday life, but when legislators and regulators act, the consequences are on a much larger scale. Unintended consequences abound in pretty much every aspect of regulated life to various degrees. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they talk about this and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.
Quick Hits
Man cited for sheltering the homeless (David Wilson)
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/elgin-greg-schiller-slumber-parties-homeless-cold-467714563.html
Philip Morris getting out of the cigarette business?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/01/03/philip-morris-marlboro-wants-give-up-cigarettes-go-smoke-free/1001442001/
Foolishness of the Week
President Trump, apparently not interested in Steve Bannon’s criticism, seeks to block the release “Sloppy Steve’s” book.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-book-20180104-story.html
https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-rage-tweets-about-wolff-and-sloppy-steve-bannon-phony-book-is-full-of-lies/
Topic of the Week: Unintended Consequences
Gun buyback
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ae0c/469a9f5d95dd2fc8112bcdadb614183aa520.pdf
Seat belt laws
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/260352
Payday lending
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203806504577183240533438580
Fishing quotas
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12098697
CEO pay
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116062249630690247
Three strikes law
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0887403405277001
Bounty on cobras
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
Mexico city air pollution
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/ldavis/Davis%20JPE%202008.pdf
California fuel economy mandates
https://web.stanford.edu/~goulder/Papers/Published%20Papers/Unintended%20Consequences%20(Pavley%20Paper)%20-%20JEEM%20March%202012.pdf
Americans with Disabilities Act
https://economics.mit.edu/files/273
Electrician licensing requirements
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01044518
Red-light cameras
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301844.html
Cash for clunkers
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16351
Venezuela
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuelas-paradox-people-are-hungry-but-farmers-cant-feed-them/2017/05/21/ce460726-3987-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html?utm_term=.32c5dd1398b0