Improving Regulation

The practice of regulatory impact assessment has long needed a critical evaluation. This volume, which is interdisciplinary and international, and combines academic and practitioner insights, hits the spot to great effect. Colin Scott, UCD College of Business and Law and UCD School of Law, Ireland Better state regulation is a key component of economic reform. This is the first book to comprehensively explore international experience in the use of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), which involves assessing the potential benefits and costs of any regulatory change. The contributors reveal that RIA is being adopted by an increasing number of countries as a route to better regulation with varying degrees of success. The book includes contributions from leading experts on regulatory reform and introduces a range of case studies from developed, developing and transitional economies. Comprehensive in its approach, this book contributes to the literature on evidence-based decision making as part of the new public management. By rigorously examining the principles of better regulation and focusing on the problem of applicability and adoption of RIA practices around the world, it will greatly aid understanding of regulatory policy design and implementation. The book will be invaluable for academics and researchers of public policy and management in developed, developing and transitional countries. It will also be of great practical relevance to government administrators and policymakers challenged by the need to understand the scope and limitations of RIA.

Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. It is important that they are designed in a way that takes account of their social, environmental and business impacts and ensures they remain relevant in today’s fast-changing context. The second edition of the Better Regulation Practices across the European Union report analyses recent developments and current practices for improving the quality of laws and regulations across all 27 EU Member States and the European Union.

The case for a smarter “prosumer law” approach to Internet regulation that would better protect online innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights. Internet use has become ubiquitous in the past two decades, but governments, legislators, and their regulatory agencies have struggled to keep up with the rapidly changing Internet technologies and uses. In this groundbreaking collaboration, regulatory lawyer Christopher Marsden and computer scientist Ian Brown analyze the regulatory shaping of “code”—the technological environment of the Internet—to achieve more economically efficient and socially just regulation. They examine five “hard cases” that illustrate the regulatory crisis: privacy and data protection; copyright and creativity incentives; censorship; social networks and user-generated content; and net neutrality. The authors describe the increasing “multistakeholderization” of Internet governance, in which user groups argue for representation in the closed business-government dialogue, seeking to bring in both rights-based and technologically expert perspectives. Brown and Marsden draw out lessons for better future regulation from the regulatory and interoperability failures illustrated by the five cases. They conclude that governments, users, and better functioning markets need a smarter “prosumer law” approach. Prosumer law would be designed to enhance the competitive production of public goods, including innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights.

Is there potential for a U.S. regulatory system that is more efficient and effective? Or is the future likely to involve 'paralysis by analysis'? Improving Regulation considers the challenges faced by the regulatory system as society and technology change, and our knowledge about the effects of our activities on human and planetary health becomes more sophisticated. While considering the difficulty in linking regulatory design and performance, Improving Regulation makes the case for empowering regulatory analysis. Studying applications as diverse as fire protection, air and water pollution, and genetics, its contributors examine the strategies of different stakeholders in today's complex policymaking environment. With a focus on the behavior of institutions and people, they consider the impact that organizational politics, science, technology, and performance have on regulation. They explore the role of technology in creating and reducing uncertainty, the costs of control, the potential involvement of previously unregulated sectors, and the contentious public debates about fairness and participation in regulatory policy. Arguing that the success of many regulations depends upon their acceptance by the public, Fischbeck, Farrow, and their contributors offer extensive, inductive evidence on the art of regulatory analysis. The resulting book provides 'real world' examples of regulation, and a demonstration of how to synthesize analytical skills with a knowledge of physical and social processes.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

As millions of Americans struggle to find work in the wake of the Great Recession, politicians from both parties look to regulation in search of an economic cure. Some claim that burdensome regulations undermine private sector competitiveness and job growth, while others argue that tough new regulations actually create jobs at the same time that they provide other benefits. Does Regulation Kill Jobs? reveals the complex reality of regulation that supports neither partisan view. Leading legal scholars, economists, political scientists, and policy analysts show that individual regulations can at times induce employment shifts across firms, sectors, and regions—but regulation overall is neither a prime job killer nor a key job creator. The challenge for policymakers is to look carefully at individual regulatory proposals to discern any job shifting they may cause and then to make regulatory decisions sensitive to anticipated employment effects. Drawing on their analyses, contributors recommend methods for obtaining better estimates of job impacts when evaluating regulatory costs and benefits. They also assess possible ways of reforming regulatory institutions and processes to take better account of employment effects in policy decision-making. Does Regulation Kills Jobs? tackles what has become a heated partisan issue with exactly the kind of careful analysis policymakers need in order to make better policy decisions, providing insights that will benefit both politicians and citizens who seek economic growth as well as the protection of public health and safety, financial security, environmental sustainability, and other civic goals. Contributors: Matthew D. Adler, Joseph E. Aldy, Christopher Carrigan, Cary Coglianese, E. Donald Elliott, Rolf Färe, Ann Ferris, Adam M. Finkel, Wayne B. Gray, Shawna Grosskopf, Michael A. Livermore, Brian F. Mannix, Jonathan S. Masur, Al McGartland, Richard Morgenstern, Carl A. Pasurka, Jr., William A. Pizer, Eric A. Posner, Lisa A. Robinson, Jason A. Schwartz, Ronald J. Shadbegian, Stuart Shapiro.

Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. High-quality laws promote national welfare and growth, while badly designed laws hinder growth, harm the environment and put the health of citizens at risk. This report analyses practices to improve the quality of laws ...