In the first analysis purporting to causally link environmental pollution to personality, Schwaba and colleagues leveraged a natural experiment driven by the United States. They used the Clean Air Act to assess the impact of decreased atmospheric lead on the “big five” personality traits. Using data from an online personality test taken by more than 1.2 million U.S. residents, Schwaba et al. reported that people born after lead levels had peaked in their county of birth had more mature, psychologically healthy personalities in adulthood (higher agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism) than cohorts born earlier and exposed to higher levels of atmospheric lead. One concern with their findings is that personality differences among people born in different periods could come from factors unrelated to lead, for example, access to abortion and birth control, or demographic, cultural, or technological changes. Schwaba et al. recognized this possibility but did not fully explore it. When we account for cohort-wide changes by introducing birth year fixed effects into Schwaba et al. ’s models, the estimated effects of the lead phaseout on personality largely disappear, becoming indistinguishable from zero while remaining precise. Meanwhile, the estimated birth year fixed effects are jointly significant, suggesting differences in personality traits across cohorts. These results indicate that any effects of the lead phaseout on more mature, psychologically healthy adult personalities are not consistently observable in the data used by Schwaba et al. More broadly, they caution against making causal inferences without controlling for time period effects.

The November 2023 revision to OMB Circular A-4 expands upon past guidance on distributional assessment in regulatory impact analysis and adds new options for conducting it, such as the use of distributional weights based on the marginal utility of income. This note explores the implications of key changes suggested in the 2023 guidelines and addresses modeling and data challenges that could yield recommendations for future revisions. We suggest that progress in improving distributional assessment in regulatory impact analysis is most likely if federal agencies collaborate with the National Science Foundation to produce model distributional analyses for different types of regulations.

The social cost of greenhouse gases is important in many regulatory impact analyses. However, calculations of the social cost of greenhouse gases are highly complex and periodically revisited. We offer seven recommendations to improve current estimates. These include recommendations to use both country-level and global measures of the social cost of greenhouse gases, to use country-specific values for monetizing climate damages, to represent uncertainties by reporting distributions instead of using only central values, and to conduct a temporal distributional analysis that shows the magnitudes of climate damages across generations. We also provide recommendations for the discount rates that should be used when estimating the social cost of greenhouse gases, and the appropriate discount rates for regulatory impact analyses that include the social cost of greenhouse gases.

Pharmacy acquisition costs for prescription ( R x ) drugs have been trending below levels implied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Consumer Price Index for R x drugs, with the divergence higher when generic approvals are high. Dropping the first 6 months of generic sales from price indices calculated from pharmacy acquisition costs eliminates most of the difference between such indices and BLS indices.

Objective To identify US drug brand (proprietary) names that are identical or similar to drug brand names used in other countries containing different active ingredients and name confusion medication errors associated with these drugs. Methods We compared a list of brand names approved by the US Food and Drug Administration from 2006 through 2018 with a list of brand names from other countries generated by Uppsala Monitoring Centre using the WHODrug Dictionary. We evaluated drug name pairs that were identical or highly similar and had different active ingredients and searched for name confusion medication errors with these drugs. Results A total of 27 US brand names were found to be identical to 38 drug brand names in other countries with different active ingredients. A total of 74 US drug brand names were highly similar to 93 brand names in other countries for drugs containing different active ingredients. We identified name confusion medication errors for one similar name pair. Conclusions US drug brand names that are identical to or highly similar to brand names in other countries may cause confusion that can lead to medication errors such as wrong drug errors and wrong drug information being consulted. Manufacturers should consider this risk prior to submitting proposed brand names to regulatory authorities. Regulatory authorities may consider incorporating this check in their brand name reviews and work with manufacturers to eliminate the use of the same or similar brand names for products with different ingredients. Consumers filling prescriptions at foreign pharmacies should also be aware of potential name confusion.

Several federal agencies claim the existence of an energy paradox in competitive markets in their benefit-cost analyses: firms fail to use energy-saving equipment that on net would reduce their costs. Such findings appear incompatible with neoclassical views that private firms in competitive markets will seek to minimize costs. EPA and NHTSA (2016) justify their findings in part by claiming that owners of trailers pulled by others underinvest in energy-saving equipment because the trailer owners incur the costs of such investments while tractor owners get the benefits. We collected roadside data over three summers and model use of energy-saving equipment on trailers. We find associations consistent with cost-reducing behavior in the use of energy efficiency devices, such as skirts and automatic tire inflation devices, but no evidence that different ownership of tractors and trailers is associated with reduced use of energy-saving equipment on trailers. We recommend that EPA and NHTSA assess the in-use cost-effectiveness of such equipment and rigorously review the empirical basis for claims of market failures in competitive markets before claiming significant private economic gains in rulemakings.

Recent research has highlighted associations of breastfeeding with IQ, schooling, and income, but uncertainty about such links remains. The Indonesian Family Life Survey, representative of 83% of the Indonesian population, provides data on breastfeeding, parents' years of schooling, wealth, and other family characteristics in 1993-1994, as well as schooling and income in 2014-2015 for 5,421 children of those families. Using linear regressions and controlling for village or neighbourhood, as well as propensity score matching, we analysed breastfeeding associations for boys and girls separately, when regularly fed foods/beverages other than breast milk is significantly associated with years of schooling in 2014-2015 for girls, but not for boys, after controlling for the village or neighbourhood of residence in 1993-1994. For girls, ages 1 to 1.9, 2 to 2.9, 3 to 3.9, and >4 months, relative to ages <1 month, are associated with an additional 0.41 to 0.46 years of schooling, with p values of 0.086, 0.071, 0.043, and 0.026, respectively. No comparable estimate for boys attains statistical significance. Using propensity score matching yields similar results. Associations with annual income in 2014-2015 are not statistically significant, either for all children, or for either sex. Our finding suggests that delaying regular feeding of foods/beverages other than breast milk beyond 1 month may help girls' schooling but has no observable association with annual income, perhaps because of lower labour force participation by women. Also, the inclusion of controls for village or neighbourhood of residence reduces confounding.

Objective: There is a significant evidence gap on the long-term educational benefits of longer breastfeeding in low- and middle-income countries. We estimated the association between duration of (any) breastfeeding and educational outcomes of Indian children. Methods: We used regression analysis to examine the association between the length of breastfeeding (in months) and future education outcomes on the basis of 2 data sets: (1) data from a follow-up survey known as the Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents Study (APCAPS, 2003-2005) of 1165 children aged 13 to 18 years from a controlled nutrition trial originally conducted in South India during the period of 1987 to 1990; and (2) nationally representative data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS-2, 2011-2012) of 6121 children aged 6 to 12 years. Results: In APCAPS, children with >36 months of breastfeeding scored 0.28 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 0.00-0.56; P < .05) higher on tests than those with up to 12 months of breastfeeding. In the nationally representative IHDS-2 data, above-median breastfeeding duration was associated with 0.1 year (95% CI: 0.04-0.16; P < .01) higher educational attainment. In IHDS-2, >12 to 24 months and >24 months of breastfeeding were associated with 0.12 (95% CI: 0.01-0.23; P < .05) and 0.19 years of (95% CI: 0.05-0.34; P < .05) higher educational attainment, respectively, than for those with up to 6 months of breastfeeding. In additional analyses by sex, we found that the benefits of breastfeeding accrued primarily to boys. Conclusion: Breastfeeding duration was associated with small gains in educational outcomes for boys but not for girls in India.

e12657 Low breastfeeding continuation to 6 months for very preterm infants: A European multiregional cohort study Camille Bonnet, Béatrice Blondel, Aurélie Piedvache, Emilija Wilson, Anna-Karin Edstedt Bonamy, Ludwig Gortner, Carina Rodrigues, Arno van Heijst, Elizabeth S. Draper, Marina Cuttini, Jennifer Zeitlin, E Martens, G Martens, P Van Reempts, K Boerch, A Hasselager, L Huusom, O Pryds, T Weber, L Toome, H Varendi, PY Ancel, B Blondel, A Burguet, PH Jarreau, P Truffert, RF Maier, B Misselwitz, S Schmidt, L Gortner, D Baronciani, G Gargano, R Agostino, D DiLallo, F Franco, V Carnielli, M Cuttini, C Koopman-Esseboom, A Van Heijst, J Nijman, J Gadzinowski, J Mazela, LM Graça, MC Machado, Carina Rodrigues, T Rodrigues, H Barros, AK Bonamy, M Norman, E Wilson, E Boyle, ES Draper, BN Manktelow, AC Fenton, DWA Milligan, J Zeitlin, M Bonet and A Piedvache

Congress is considering two bills that would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make publicly available all data from studies that it relies on as it develops regulations. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost $250 million per year for the EPA to comply with such a requirement. As an alternative to these bills, the Obama administration points to an Office of Science and Technology Policy directive requiring that agencies spending more than $100 million per year on research issue plans to maximize public access to federally funded data. We show that this directive has not been implemented by the EPA and that there is good reason to question the validity of scientific research when the data used to create it is not publicly available. Furthermore, there is good reason to believe that the CBO significantly overestimated the cost of the bills. We recommend that all regulatory agencies generally provide public access to the data they rely on to develop economically significant regulations.

Several federal benefit-cost analyses report an energy paradox among firms in competitive markets and conclude that firms would benefit from mandates to increase the use of energy-saving technologies. Such findings appear incompatible with neoclassical views that private firms in competitive markets minimize costs. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, presumes that owners of trailers pulled by tractors belonging to others underinvest in energy-saving technologies because trailer owners incur the costs while tractor owners get the benefits. We test this hypothesis by collecting data and modeling the use of energy-saving technologies as a function of fleet size, the intensity of truck usage, and proxies for management quality. We find effects consistent with conventional models but no evidence that different ownership of tractors and trailers is associated with reduced use of energy-saving technologies on trailers. Regulators should refrain from making claims that firms underuse energy-saving technologies without first rigorously evaluating evidence for such claims.

Policymakers considering interventions that improve cognitive performance (IQ) need estimates of the value of IQ improvements. Using the classical model of structured expert judgment, we develop estimates of the percentage increase in earned income from interventions to increase IQ in India. Our estimates vary with age, for boys and girls, for urban areas and all of India, and also reflect expert’s uncertainty. We combine these estimates with data on wages and labor force participation from the Indian Human Development Survey and use lifetables for India to calculate the expected discounted gain in lifetime earnings from a hypothetical gain of one IQ point (per capita), in both Indian Rupees and US dollars. We contrast our estimates with earlier estimates for the United States, including those used by regulatory agencies in the United States. Our results (which range from low tens to low hundreds of dollars per capita, depending on gender and discount rates), suggest that large scale interventions that are effective in raising cognitive performance in India would have large economic benefits.

Regulatory impact analyses (RIAs) weigh the benefits of regulations against the burdens they impose and are invaluable tools for informing decision makers. We offer 10 tips for nonspecialist policymakers and interested stakeholders who will be reading RIAs as consumers. 1. Core problem: Determine whether the RIA identifies the core problem (compelling public need) the regulation is intended to address. 2. Alternatives: Look for an objective, policy-neutral evaluation of the relative merits of reasonable alternatives. 3. Baseline: Check whether the RIA presents a reasonable “counterfactual” against which benefits and costs are measured. 4. Increments: Evaluate whether totals and averages obscure relevant distinctions and trade-offs. 5. Uncertainty: Recognize that all estimates involve uncertainty, and ask what effect key assumptions, data, and models have on those estimates. 6. Transparency: Look for transparency and objectivity of analytical inputs. 7. Benefits: Examine how projected benefits relate to stated objectives. 8. Costs: Understand what costs are included. 9. Distribution: Consider how benefits and costs are distributed. 10. Symmetrical treatment: Ensure that benefits and costs are presented symmetrically.

Government mandates to disclose information are a standard response to problems of asymmetric information. We examine recent major U.S. regulations issued between 2008 and 2013 to identify disclosure mandates and look for quantitative assessments of their effectiveness in improving comprehension. We also reviewed the retrospective regulatory review reports of four federal agencies – prepared pursuant to Executive Orders 13563 and 13579 – for analyses of existing mandates. We find that although mandated disclosures underpin a number of major federal regulatory initiatives, agencies infrequently issue such mandates based on scientifically valid, controlled studies of the improvements in comprehension from such disclosure. We also conduct four case studies drawn from the relatively few instances where federal agencies have evaluated improvements in comprehension, to identify current best practices. Finally, we recommend reforms to improve federally mandated information disclosure.

![Figure][1] Cost-effective emissions controls depend on calculating the domestic and global social costs of carbon.PHOTO: © IMAGINECHINA/CORBISThe National Academies of Sciences have assembled a committee to review the economic aspects of climate change in order to better estimate the

We use information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and supplementary data sources to examine how cognitive performance, measured at approximately the end of secondary schooling, is related to the labor market outcomes of 20 through 50 year olds.Our estimates control for a wide array of individual and family background characteristics, a limited set of non-cognitive attributes, survey year dummy variables and, sometimes, geographic place effects.The analysis reveals five main findings.First, cognitive performance is positively associated with future labor market outcomes at all ages.The relationship is attenuated but not eliminated by the addition of controls for non-cognitive characteristics, while the inclusion of place effects does not change the estimated associations.Second, the returns to cognitive skill increase with age.Third, the effect on total incomes reflects a combination of positive impacts of cognitive performance for both hourly wages and annual work hours.Fourth, the returns to cognitive skill are greater for women than men and for blacks and Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, with differential effects on work hours being more important than corresponding changes in hourly wages.Fifth, the average gains in lifetime incomes predicted to result from greater levels of cognitive performance are only slightly above those reported in prior studies but the effects are heterogeneous, with larger relative and absolute increases, in most models, for nonwhites or Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, and higher relative but not absolute returns for women than men.

We seek to estimate the effects of breastfeeding on the present value of future earnings increases resulting from IQ increases. Using new estimates of the effect of cognitive performance on lifetime earnings in the United States, based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, developed by Lin, Lutter, and Ruhm (2016) and new baseline estimates of the present value of lifetime earnings following methods of Grosse et al. (2002), we find that the expected value of increases in the present value of lifetime earnings from breastfeeding is about $20,000, assuming a 3 percent discount rate, with a 95 percent confidence interval from $2,900 to $38,700. If half of all US infants born each year were better breastfed, we estimate the total increase in the present value of future earnings to be $40 billion annually.

Government mandates to disclose information are a standard response to problems of asymmetric information. We examine recent major U.S. regulations issued between 2008 and 2013 to identify disclosure mandates and look for quantitative assessments of their effectiveness in improving comprehension. We also reviewed the retrospective regulatory review reports of four federal agencies – prepared pursuant to Executive Orders 13563 and 13579 – for analyses of existing mandates. We find that although mandated disclosures underpin a number of major federal regulatory initiatives, agencies infrequently issue such mandates based on scientifically valid, controlled studies of the improvements in comprehension from such disclosure. We also conduct four case studies drawn from the relatively few instances where federal agencies have evaluated improvements in comprehension, to identify current best practices. Finally, we recommend reforms to improve federally mandated information disclosure.

In 2009 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimated that its shell egg rule would reduce illness from Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) by about 79,000 cases annually (37%), with a range from about 30,000 to 191,000 cases avoided. I assess the effectiveness of this rule, which requires farmers who sell eggs to adopt SE control measures, by comparing illness from SE with illness from other Salmonella serotypes, using a differences-in-differences approach. The data reject the hypothesis that the rule reduced illnesses by FDA’s best 2009 estimate, but do not reject a hypothesis of no effect. The percentage of young broilers that test positive for SE has a modest effect on the incidence of human cases of salmonellosis caused by SE. Recent literature offers two other reasons to adjust FDA’s prospective 2009 calculations. One adjustment would follow the Centers for Disease Control’s use of a lower multiplier to infer the total number of (unobserved) cases of illness from those confirmed by positive lab tests. A second adjustment would lower the average cost of Salmonella cases, by recognizing lower risk of severe sequelae. These adjustments and the new retrospective assessment of the effectiveness of the rule together suggest that the benefits of FDA’s egg rule may be a small fraction of the prospective estimate of benefits, and less than the prospective estimate of costs. I conclude with some policy recommendations to make food safety regulations more effective.

Federal and other regulatory agencies often use or claim to use a weight of evidence (WoE) approach in chemical evaluation. Their approaches to the use of WoE, however, differ significantly, rely heavily on subjective professional judgment, and merit improvement. We review uses of WoE approaches in key articles in the peer‐reviewed scientific literature, and find significant variations. We find that a hypothesis‐based WoE approach, developed by Lorenz Rhomberg et al ., can provide a stronger scientific basis for chemical assessment while improving transparency and preserving the appropriate scope of professional judgment. Their approach, while still evolving, relies on the explicit specification of the hypothesized basis for using the information at hand to infer the ability of an agent to cause human health impacts or, more broadly, affect other endpoints of concern. We describe and endorse such a hypothesis‐based WoE approach to chemical evaluation.