The 2020 Regulatory Year in Review

Throughout the past year, regulators from around the world have faced pressing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic turmoil, environmental instability, and racial injustice—to name but a few of the many consequential issues with implications for regulatory policy. As 2020 comes to an end, those of us who produce The Regulatory Review are taking the time to reflect on the significant role that regulation has played in shaping global events and addressing unprecedented challenges in the United States and around the world during the year. In this year-end series, The Regulatory Review highlights many of these developments and showcases the most widely read essays we have published during this past year. Based on page views, we first spotlight the most widely read contributor essays from among the many that we have published by the world’s leading experts on regulatory law and policy. We then recap the most widely read essays by our own staff members. We then highlight the special series of essays published in The Regulatory Review during this past calendar year. Finally, we turn to the major regulatory news stories of the year, as selected by our editorial team, that we covered each Friday in our regular Week in Review column. At The Regulatory Review, we not only appreciate the privilege we have to cover many of the vital regulatory issues of the day; we also feel the weight of our responsibility to do so. In what we publish each Monday through Saturday, we seek to bring greater light to complex policy debates of great consequence for individuals and businesses. We wish to thank our readers and our contributors for engaging with us, at The Regulatory Review, in this important public service. Best wishes for the new year. – The Editorial Board of The Regulatory Review December 28, 2020 We are pleased to feature the top essays written by our expert contributors in 2020, including Eric A. Feldman’s “Did Japan’s Lenient Lockdown Conquer the Coronavirus?,” Richard W. Parker’s “Lessons From New Zealand’s COVID-19 Success,” Seung-Youn Oh’s “South Korea’s Success Against COVID-19,” and more. December 29, 2020 We are pleased to feature the top essays written by The Regulatory Review staff in 2020, including James Alford’s “Are Subprime Auto Loans Driving the Next Financial Crisis?,” Meghan Downey and Adam Garnick’s “Explaining the Supreme Court’s DACA Decision,” Allie Gottlieb’s “Florida’s Unemployment Insurance System Breaks Down Under COVID-19,” and more. December 30, 2020 We are pleased to recap the many topical series published in The Regulatory Review during 2020, including “Comparing Nations’ Responses to COVID-19,” “Celebrating The Regulatory Review’s Tenth Anniversary,” “Racism, Regulation, and the Administrative State,” and more. January 1, 2021 In lieu of our regular Friday feature—the Week in Review—we are recapping some of the top regulatory news from the entire year, including the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental deregulation, and the U.S. presidential election