# Cato Studies 

September/​October 2021 • Policy Report 

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**Large Bureaucracy Administration** 
The Small Business Administration has been responsible for implementing two marquee programs as part of the federal government’s pandemic response: the $813 billion Paycheck Protection Program and the $367 billion Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. In **“Assessing the Small Business Administration’s Pandemic Programs: Not Good Enough, Even for Government Work”** (Legal Policy Bulletin no. 7), William Yeatman finds that both programs reflect gross expansions of dysfunctional frameworks that were already troubled before the pandemic.

**Depressing Dirigisme** 
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising U.S.-China tensions, American policymakers have again embraced “industrial policy,” a once-discarded idea for governmental quasi-management of the economy. In a new working paper, **“Questioning Industrial Policy: Why Government Manufacturing Plans Are Ineffective and Unnecessary,”** Scott Lincicome and Huan Zhu offer a framework for understanding the history of industrial policy and why its revival should be unwelcome.

**Green Trade** 
Talks at the World Trade Organization over removing tariffs on environmental goods began in 2014 but have since stalled. In **“Free Trade in Environmental Goods Will Increase Access to Green Tech”** (Free Trade Bulletin no. 80), James Bacchus and Inu Manak urge the new Biden administration to prioritize such trade as part of its commitment to fighting climate change.

**Drive Sober** 
As part of his wide-ranging research into claims that illegal immigrants threaten the safety of Americans, Alex Nowrasteh together with Michael Howard has compiled the evidence on drunk driving in **“Drunk Driving Deaths and Illegal Immigration”** (Immigration Research and Policy Brief no. 20). Nationwide, they find no statistical relationship between higher illegal immigrant population shares and drunk driving deaths.

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