Patrick A. McLaughlin is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Pacific Legal Foundation, and an Affiliated Member of the Frankfurt Competence Center for German and Global Regulation (FCCR) at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. His research focuses primarily on regulations and the regulatory process.
McLaughlin created and leads the RegData and QuantGov projects, deploying machine learning and other tools of data science to quantify governance indicators found in federal and state regulations, statutes, and other policy documents. The resulting database, freely available at QuantGov.org, has facilitated pioneering empirical research by hundreds of third-party users on the causes and effects of regulation.
He has authored over thirty peer-reviewed studies in diverse areas, including regulatory economics, administrative law, industrial organization, and international trade. He is the co-author, with Oliver Sherouse, of The Impact of Federal Regulation on the Fifty States. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Regulatory Economics.
