The Regulatory Pendulum Is Swinging – America Is Becoming Europe

Most investors would argue that Europe overregulates relative to the US. However, that was not always the case. Political Scientist David Vogel of University of California, Berkeley, posited that the two economies shifted models in the 1990s. Prior to that decade, the US led health, safety, and environmental regulations, having far more stringent rules than Europe. As a prominent example of this, it was the US that quickly banned all non-essential CFCs, chemicals that harm the ozone layer, whereas European governments did not act initially, favoring their industries while awaiting evidence.