Abstract: This article begins with a discussion of the considerable difficulties of conducting a theoretically complete analysis of the costs and benefits of financial regulation, as well as the problems associated with making international comparisons between observed levels of the intensity of financial regulation. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the author next presents preliminary data about the direct regulatory costs of financial regulation in the US and offer some tentative international comparisons. Compared to at least the UK and Germany, the intensity of securities enforcement actions in the US appears to be strikingly higher. Not only are there more financial regulators in the US, but they also carry bigger sticks than their foreign counterparts. The article concludes with some thoughts about additional lines of research in this area and the implications of this data for the ongoing debate over regulatory convergence.