4-14 — The literature on justifications for regulation is vast. If you are interested in digging deeper, two useful treatments are Thomas Lambert, How to Regulate (2017), and chapter 1 of Justice Breyer’s 1982 book Regulation and its Reform.

14-17 — Here is a 1980 document from the Environmental Protection Agency entitled “Checklist of Regulatory Alternatives.” It is partly of historic interest, a reminder that more than four decades ago regulators understood and thought about the suite of regulatory alternatives and their relative advantages and disadvantages. But much of the discussion is quite sophisticated and remains relevant.