Despite its passage some time ago, recent attention has been brought to the impending implementation of a Washington, D.C., regulation that will require all professional childcare workers to have a college degree. This has raised a great hue and cry as it will ban a number of existing childcare workers from their chosen profession as well as having the effect of dramatically increasing the cost of childcare in the District — which is, incidentally, already incredibly high when compared to the rest of the country. Unintended consequences happen all the time in everyday life, but when legislators and regulators act, the consequences are on a much larger scale. Unintended consequences abound in pretty much every aspect of regulated life to various degrees. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they talk about this and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Quick Hits

 Man cited for sheltering the homeless (David Wilson)

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/elgin-greg-schiller-slumber-parties-homeless-cold-467714563.html

 Philip Morris getting out of the cigarette business?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/01/03/philip-morris-marlboro-wants-give-up-cigarettes-go-smoke-free/1001442001/

 Foolishness of the Week

 President Trump, apparently not interested in Steve Bannon’s criticism, seeks to block the release “Sloppy Steve’s” book.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-book-20180104-story.html

 

https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-rage-tweets-about-wolff-and-sloppy-steve-bannon-phony-book-is-full-of-lies/

 Topic of the Week: Unintended Consequences

 Gun buyback

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ae0c/469a9f5d95dd2fc8112bcdadb614183aa520.pdf

 Seat belt laws

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/260352

 Payday lending

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203806504577183240533438580

 Fishing quotas

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12098697

 CEO pay

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116062249630690247

 Three strikes law

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0887403405277001

 Bounty on cobras

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-cobra-effect-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

 Mexico city air pollution

http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/ldavis/Davis%20JPE%202008.pdf

 California fuel economy mandates

https://web.stanford.edu/~goulder/Papers/Published%20Papers/Unintended%20Consequences%20(Pavley%20Paper)%20-%20JEEM%20March%202012.pdf

 Americans with Disabilities Act

https://economics.mit.edu/files/273

 Electrician licensing requirements

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01044518

 Red-light cameras

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301844.html

 Cash for clunkers

http://www.nber.org/papers/w16351

 Venezuela

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuelas-paradox-people-are-hungry-but-farmers-cant-feed-them/2017/05/21/ce460726-3987-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html?utm_term=.32c5dd1398b0