The normative justification for delegation to independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) is that they operate by using technical analysis and expertise rather than political considerations in their decision-making processes. Although delegation has been discussed as a design principle, systematic evidence on the conditions under which IRAs make use of scientific knowledge and how is still scarce. Scientific knowledge can be used to achieve instrumental learning, but also to seek legitimacy from the policy environment or to improve the agency's standing in the political games with the principal. This article will suggest how comparative empirical research can be usefully organized, by enriching delegation and organizational theories with the insights of the literature on knowledge utilization. Drawing on the methodological device of explanatory typologies, the article aims at shedding light on different types of knowledge utilization and the scope conditions that lead to a certain use of knowledge by IRAs.

Governments throughout the world are requiring greater use of economic analysis as a way of informing policy decisions. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of impact assessment in the European Union, using US assessments as a benchmark. We find that recent EU impact assessments include more economic information than they did in the past, although important items are still missing. We also provide evidence that the quality of EU impact assessment increases with the expected cost of a proposal. Furthermore, we find that the quality of EU assessments that report high total costs is similar to that of US assessments.

This article examines the content of impact assessments in the European

This paper examines the quality of impact assessments in the European Commission and the United Kingdom for the period [2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010]. We coded 477 impact assessments for the UK and 251 for the European Commission, using a detailed scorecard -adjusted to reduce the bias evidenced by previous usages of this instrument.The findings suggest that impact assessment is not merely a perfunctory activity in the European Union and the UK. Quality has improved steadily over the years, arguably as a result of learning and regulatory oversight. The UK and the European Commission are strikingly similar on a number of impact assessment dimensions (such as economic analysis and identification of costs and benefits). The impact assessments of the European Commission seem to pay more attention to social and environmental aspects, however. The conclusions reflect on the implications of our findings for current policy discussions on regulatory quality and the role of regulatory oversight bodies.

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