Economist Bruce Yandle is known for (among many other things) authoring the “Bootleggers and Baptists” theory of government regulation. The gist of the theory is that many forms of regulation (and other types of government intervention) persist because of the political clout of one group – the “bootleggers”—that is only interested in money, and another group – the “Baptists” – that has some religious or ideological interest in a particular form of government intervention.
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