Law Commons^™

In an era when administrative agency actions succeed or fail based on the thoroughness and rigor of their cost-benefit analyses and expertise, the 1940 statutory ban on hiring economists at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is a shocking anachronism. The ban, accompanied by the Board’s failure to solicit external expertise, severely limits the success of the Board’s actions on judicial review, its institutional competency, and its ability to assess the economic effects of its labor regulation in achieving a central goal of the National Labor Relations Act:equal bargaining power between workers and their employers that secures competitive wages and …