State Strategies to Help Businesses Launch and Expand

Innovative approaches to regulation can boost opportunities for growth

State governments can undermine opportunities for investment and job creation when businesses spend too much time or money on inefficient regulatory processes, or when new business projects get delayed because firms don’t understand how to comply with the rules. To address this challenge, state policymakers can focus on two types of reforms. First, they can improve the efficiency of regulatory systems so businesses can comply with the rules in a less costly and time-consuming manner. Second, they can partner with businesses to increase compliance as well as economic opportunity. Together, these changes form a powerful economic development strategy by making it quicker and easier for entrepreneurs to launch a new business or bring an innovative product to market.

Policymakers often focus their efforts on trying to reduce or eliminate requirements. Increasingly, however, they are finding that business leaders are less interested in eliminating regulations outright and more interested in getting help navigating the regulatory process and receiving timely and predictable regulatory decisions. 

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