REGULATIONS designed to alter the quality of products and services produced in the US have increased rapidly in the last few years. This growth in product regulation has occurred in tandem with increasing disenchantment with conventional rate of return regulation. Underlying this shift away from economic regulation in favor of social regulation seems to be the belief that the benefits from the latter may be substantial. This paper provides a first-cut estimate of the benefits consumers can expect from a set ofproduct regulations. As such, it is kin to a long chain of work documenting the gains (or lack of gains) from antitrust and economic regulation