April 2012

Better Regulation in Europe: Italy

This review of regulation in Italy maps and analyses the core issues which together make up effective regulatory management, laying down a framework of what should be driving regulatory policy and reform in the future. It is the latest of the series on Better Regulation in Europe.

March 2012

Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance

Based on the lessons learned from a body of OECD reviews and following an intensive process conducted in OECD committees and the Regulatory Policy Committee, the OECD Council adopted the Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance on 22 March 2012. These are the most detailed and advanced international guidelines and principles to be implemented by OECD member countries on regulatory quality and performance.

January 2012

Now more than ever, OECD countries are investing significant resources in regulatory policies and reforms. The OECD has developed a guide that helps officials use perception surveys to evaluate and communicate the results of reform processes.

November 2011

Regulatory Policy and Governance: Supporting Economic Growth and Serving the Public Interest

This report assesses the recent efforts of OECD countries to develop and deepen regulatory policy and governance. It evaluates the comprehensive policy cycle by which regulations are designed, assessed and evaluated, revised, and enforced at all levels of government and describes progress developing a range of regulatory management tools including consultation, Regulatory Impact Assessment, risk and regulation, and administrative simplification.

July 2011

OECD Public Governance Reviews - Towards More Effective and Dynamic Public Management in Mexico

This public governance review of Mexico examines the regulatory framework in Mexico, explains how e-government could be used to find new approaches to old challenges, and looks at the challenge of professionalising public servants in Mexico.Access webpage. 

The full Spanish version will be available early 2012. The synthesis version in Spanish can be downloaded here.

March 2011

Strengthening the Institutional Setting for Regulatory Reform: Oversight Bodies in OECD Countries

This Working Paper analyses the institutional setting for regulatory reform. It is the first comprehensive analysis of regulatory oversight bodies. The analysis adopts a functional approach through four core functions: i) oversight of the rule-making process; ii) assisting rule makers in their evidence-based analysis; iii) challenging the quality of regulatory proposals; iv) advocating for quality/better regulation. The report analyses the key factors contributing to success, as well as elements for the credibility of regulatory oversight.

February 2011

Administrative Simplification in Viet Nam: Supporting the Competitiveness of the Vietnamese Economy

Administrative simplification in Viet Nam has reached a defining moment.This report details Project 30 and related initiatives. Using international comparisons and incorporating experience from similar reforms in other countries, it explores how Viet Nam can rapidly bring about the full potential of Project 30 and introduce a complete range of regulatory reform instruments in the near future.

January 2011

Administrative Simplification in Poland: Making Policies Perform 

To date, Poland has adopted a complex administrative simplification programme, based on methods successfully used in other OECD countries. It has two main streams: one focused on simplifying licences and permits, the other on measuring and reducing regulatory burdens. This report reviews the programme with the aim of helping Poland to make it and its implementation more efficient.

October 2010

“Too much ‘red tape’!” is one of the most common complaints from businesses and citizens in OECD countries. Administrative simplification is a regulatory quality tool to review and reduce administrative and regulatory procedures. It has remained high on the agenda in most OECD countries over the last decade and continues to be so. Countries’ efforts to strengthen their competitiveness, productivity and entrepreneurship during the current recession have made simplification efforts even more urgent.

June 2010

Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Management Systems, Working Paper No. 17

This Working Paper presents preliminary analytical estimates using the 1998 and 2005 surveys of indicators of systems for the management of regulatory quality. Two broad dimensions are found in regulatory management systems using Factor Analysis, and Principal Component Analysis. The first reflects an integrated approach to ex ante assessment, with the use of tools such as formal consultation and regulatory impact analysis as well as institutions for regulatory oversight, training and capacity  building. The second focuses on the stock of regulation, with administrative simplification, streamlining licences and permits, etc. These data are correlated with other available datasets on regulatory frameworks, including the OECD indicators of Product Market Regulations, subsets of the Doing business and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) from the World Bank and the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) from the World Economic Forum. 

May  2010

Italy: Better Regulation to Strengthen Market Dynamics

Italy has made significant progress using regulatory reform since the first OECD review in 2001. Administrative simplification and the increasing role of competition policy, combined with devolution of state powers to regions, have helped. But there are still key challenges for regulatory policy and its implementation, including enforcement, capacity in the civil service, impact analysis for evidence-based decision making, and building a culture of consultation. The current global economic crisis is an opportunity for Italy to further clarify how the state intervenes in the economy, to improve multi-level co-ordination, and to expand competition in specific sectors. Regulatory reform is an even more important microeconomic strategy in the current climate and could stimulate productivity, if the high regulatory burdens affecting the private sector can be cut.

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April 2010

Risk and Regulatory Policy: Improving the Governance of Risk

We expect governments to protect citizens from the adverse consequences of hazardous events. At the same time it is not possible or necessarily in the best interest of citizens for all risks to be removed. A risk-based approach to the design and implementation of regulation can help to ensure that regulatory approaches are efficient, effective and account for risk/risk tradeoffs across policy objectives. Risk-based approaches to the design of regulation and compliance strategies can improve the welfare of citizens by providing better protection, more efficient government services and reduced costs for business. Across the OECD there is great potential to improve the operation of risk policy as few governments have taken steps to develop a coherent risk governance policy for managing regulation.

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April 2010

Regulatory Reform for Recovery: Lessons from Implementation during Crises

Does regulatory reform play an important role in helping countries recover from crises? Do crises pose particular challenges for the implementation of regulatory reform programmes? This study aims to answer these questions based on case studies of OECD countries’ regulatory reform responses to past crisis episodes. As countries are focusing their efforts on strategies for economic recovery from the global financial and economic crisis of 2008-09, the findings of this study should be timely for policy makers seeking to design, adopt and implement regulatory reform.

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April 2010

Successful Practices and Policies to Promote Regulatory Reform and Entrepreneurship at the Sub-national Level, Working Paper No. 18

The OECD and Mexico’s Ministry of Economy are carrying out a regulatory reform programme to improve the competitiveness of its states. Multi-level regulatory governance is an important component of the regulatory reform agenda. In Mexico, where sub-national governments have extensive regulatory power, many of the key issues and challenges must be addressed in a multi-level regulatory governance framework.

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2010

Better Regulation in Europe - The EU 15 project

The EU15 project assesses capacities for effective regulatory management across the EU, through individual reviews of fifteen member states, covering half the OECD membership. The reports make up the Better Regulation in Europe series, carried out by the OECD in partnership with the European Commission. The project started in 2008 and will be completed in 2010. It will culminate in a synthesis that will highlight key conclusions and map out a path for effective regulation in support of key public policy goals.

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February 2010

This review of regulatory reform in Australia comes at the right time to capture the attention of the OECD community. Australia has successfully weathered the worst effects of the current economic crisis. The resilience of the Australian economy, in the face of the deepest and most widespread recession in over fifty years in OECD countries, can in part be attributed to Australia’s current and past regulatory reforms.