The 2021 Regulatory Year in Review

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The Regulatory Review presents its top essays from the past year.

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Throughout the past year, regulators from around the world have faced pressing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental instability, and racial injustice—to name but a few of the many consequential issues with implications for regulatory policy.

As 2021 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 past 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. Next, we highlight the most widely read Saturday Seminars written by our own staff members.  Then, we are pleased to spotlight our eleven 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 associate editors, 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 week, 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


Top Contributor Essays of 2021

December 27, 2021

We are pleased to feature the top essays written by our outside contributors in 2021, including Jai Massari and Christian Catalini’s “Defi, Disintermediation, and the Regulatory Path Ahead,” Sarah Roubidoux Lawson and Megan Powell’s “Unsettled Consequences of the McGirt Decision,” Amanda Shanor’s “LGBTQ+ Need Not Apply,” and more.


Top Staff Essays of 2021

December 28, 2021

We are pleased to feature the top essays written by The Regulatory Review staff in 2021, including Allie Gottlieb’s “The Struggle for Voting Rights in Georgia,” Oliver Paprin’s “Reimagining the Public Option,” Leticia Salazar’s “Regulating Police use of Deadly Force in the United States,” and more.


Top Saturday Seminars of 2021

December 29, 2021

We are pleased to highlight the top Saturday Seminars written by The Regulatory Review staff in 2021, including “Regulating Methane Emissions” by Caitlin Kim, Katherine Rohde, and Taylor Ross, “Combating AAPI Hate” by Jamison Chung, Brinna Ludwig, Brianna Rauenzahn, and Jasmine Wang,  “Waging War Against Sexual Harassment in the Workplace” by Karis Stephen, Margaret Sturtevant, and Soojin Jeong, and more.


Featured Series of 2021

December 30, 2021

We are pleased to recap the many topical series published in The Regulatory Review during 2021, including “Native Peoples, Tribal Sovereignty, and Regulation,” “LGBTQ+ Rights and Regulation,” “Regulating Elections in the United States,” and more.


Top Regulatory News of 2021

December 31, 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 vaccine authorization, the White House’s Justice40 Initiative, and the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Aduhelm, a drug created to treat Alzheimer’s disease.