Implementing regulatory innovations in Europe: the case of impact assessment

Abstract

Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) has become a major tool on the agenda of regulatory reform across Europe. Although the literature on RIA is burgeoning, the comparative analysis of implementation has been neglected. This article draws on implementation theory to formulate expectations about the political costs and benefits of different degrees of implementation. Implementation ranges from political endorsement to the creation of central units in charge of regulatory quality and the production and publication of RIA results and methods. Our findings show that economic integration, the characteristics of the political system, economic resources, bureaucratic efficiency and pressure group activities play different roles in the various stages of implementation. We discuss the policy implications of these findings in terms of priorities given to different processes of regulatory reform and the demands that innovations like RIA pose on administrative capacity and stakeholders' participation.

Tax Policy Assessment in Slovenia – Case of Interest Tax Shield

“…20 Francesco et al (2012 Generally, there is a lack of theoretical knowledge about planning and preparation procedures for tax legislation assessments, and there are almost no studies that specifically report the tax policy assessment in any country. The exception we found was a study on impact assessment of measures in the field of taxation in Great Britain.…”

The politics and economics of regulatory impact assessment

“…With econometric models, De Francesco et al (2012) test different sets of variables (political, economic and administrative) at the various stages of implementation, from IA adoption to the creation of oversight units and, finally, the publication of the analysis. Interestingly, bureaucratic efficiency does not predict the choice of adopting IA.…”

Policy Coherence for Development in the European Union: Do New Procedures Unblock or Simply Reproduce Old Disagreements?

“…However, an emerging strand of the IA literature, which draws on implementation theory, has recently sought to explain how 'implementation actors' can steer individual IAs towards one image or another on the ground (e.g. Dunlop et al 2012;de Francesco et al 2012). These studies argue that the motivations for establishing IA at the 'jurisdictional level' may differ to those at the 'policy level' and that 'implementation actors' often enjoy significant discretion over the way in which IAs are carried out.…”