When deregulation wins: Cross-sectional evidence from the 2024 Trump election

We examine how regulatory fragmentation – the division of oversight among multiple agencies – shapes market reactions to Donald Trump’s 2024 election and the launch of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The surprise victory and DOGE’s mandate to consolidate or eliminate agencies created an unprecedented deregulatory shock targeting the structure, rather than the scale, of federal oversight. Firms operating in industries that depend on inter-agency coordination, such as utilities, finance, and technology, experienced the largest gains. The results show that fragmentation itself – not regulatory quantity – drives cross-sectional return differences: when policy momentum favors consolidation, investors reprice the value of administrative complexity.