Do government regulations squelch marketplace innovation? A new study from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Nathan Goldschlag and George Mason University’s Alex Tabarrok says, “Not really.”

According to Ryan Young at the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

…the underlying institutions of social cooperation, market exchange, and dynamism are strong enough that federal regulation has, according to Goldschlag and Tabarrok’s analysis, so far been unable to squelch them. Just as a balloon pressed on one end pushes air to the other end, people will still find ways to cooperate and exchange with each other even when regulations push down on them. This inner strength of human cooperation is my great source of optimism, and Tabarrok draws on similar themes in his excellent 2011 e-book Launching the Innovation Renaissance.

Read “Does Regulation Hurt Innovation? at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.