Law and the Limits of Government

Temporary versus Permanent Legislation

Frank Fagan, Associate Professor of Law, EDHEC Business School, France

Why do legislatures pass laws that automatically expire? Why are so many tax cuts sunset? In this first book-length treatment of those questions, the author explains that legislatures pass laws temporarily in order to reduce opposition from the citizenry, to increase the level of information revealed by lobbies, and to externalize the political costs of changing the tax code on to future legislatures. This book provides a careful analysis which does not normatively prescribe either permanent or temporary legislation in every instance, but rather specifies the conditions for which either permanent or temporary legislation would maximize social welfare.

‘Law and the Limits of Government by Frank Fagan is a creative and enormously useful book for any scholar of legislation, timing rules, and politics.’
– Jacob Gersen, Harvard Law School, US