The Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) Lecture Series: ABSTRACT: For three decades, from 1960 to 1990, consumer and environmental risk regulations in the United States were typically more risk averse, innovative, and comprehensive than those adopted in Western Europe or by the European Union. But since around 1990, risk regulations adopted by the EU have been more likely to be stringent, innovative, and comprehensive than those adopted – or more frequently not adopted – in the United States. Why have policymakers in Europe and the U.S. responded so differently to a wide range of consumer and environmental risks? Why have so many similar risks become politically unacceptable in Europe, but acceptable in the U.S? This lecture explains these shifts in transatlantic regulatory stringency by focusing on the interaction of two sets of factors: shifts in public opinion, and institutional and political developments.

DAVID VOGEL is a Professor at the Haas School of Business and the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books on government regulation of business.

Commentator: Barry Rabe is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy