The growing “right-to-repair” legislative movement seeks to make it easier and cheaper for consumers to fix their products by requiring manufacturers to share repair information, provide diagnostic tools, and supply service parts. Various right-to-repair laws have been considered and passed around the world. In Europe, manufacturers are legally required to supply spare parts for up to 10 years. In the U.S., President Biden signed a sweeping executive order in July 2021 directing the FTC to draft new right-to-repair regulations, and various U.S. states have passed some version of right-to-repair legislation.
Research: The Unintended Consequences of Right-to-Repair Laws
A model assessing their potential impact suggests manufacturers might flood the market with cheap goods, raise prices, or both.
January 19, 2023
HBR Staff; photokool/Getty Images; Unsplash
Summary.
Right-to-repair legislation is designed to break manufacturers’ monopoly on the repair market, thereby allowing consumers to hold on to their old products longer, so they do not throw away used products and buy new ones as quickly. This would reduce the environmental impact by reducing e-waste and new production. New research, forthcoming in the journal Management Science, challenges this conventional wisdom and finds that the right-to-repair legislation may in some instances lead manufacturers to flood the market with cheap goods, thereby damaging the environment, and in other instances lead manufacturers to dramatically raise the price of goods, thereby hurting consumers. Lawmakers should examine specific product categories, including their production cost and environmental impact, and guard against sweeping, one-size-fits-all legislation.