SYSTEMATIC USE OF
EX POST REVIEWS
OF REGULATION
Daniel Trnka
Senior Policy Analyst,
Regulatory Policy Division,
Public Governance Directorate
OECD
Background
• Large stock of regulation has accumulated over time 
“regulatory jungle” impedes competition, innovation
• Pressures from both sides – to reduce regulatory
burdens while protecting even more
• Big enthusiasm in late 90s and 2000s about
measuring administrative burdens – response of
stakeholders less positive than expected
• Main reasons: obsession with numbers, cutting dead
wood, insufficient communication, most burdensome
vs. most irritating, lack of evaluation and
demonstration of “real life” effects
• Need of systematic, periodic reviews and
simplification to keep regulations “fit for purpose”
Ex post reviews of regulations
• Increasingly popular, not only among transforming
countries
• Differences in goals, techniques, criteria, coordination mechanisms
• Are regulations meeting the objectives for which they
were created?
• Different criteria – legality, obsoleteness, userfriendliness, complexity…
• Three basic types:
– On-going stock management
– Programmed reviews
– Ad Hoc reviews
Ex-post evaluation - approaches
Stock
management
reviews
• Regulator-based
strategies
• Stock-flow rules
• Red tape
reduction targets
Ongoing
Programmed
mechanisms
• Sun-setting
• Ex-post review
requirements in
new regulation
• Post
implementation
reviews
At a set time
Ad-hoc/special
purpose reviews
• Stocktakes of
burden
• Principles-based
• Benchmarking
• In-depth reviews
As needed
Most evaluation is ad hoc, focusing on
administrative burden
Source: OECD (2015), OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook 2015, http://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatorypolicy/indicators-regulatory-policy-and-governance.htm
Underlying goals of regulation are not yet
the main focus
Source: OECD (2015), OECD Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance (iREG),
http://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/indicators-regulatory-policy-and-governance.htm
Efforts vs. impacts
Potentially high return
Low effort
High effort
Potentially low return
Ø
Ø
Ø
Frequent stocktakes
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Sunsetting
Ø
Known high cost areas and known
solutions from past reviews
Ø
Regulator management strategies
where weak in the past
Periodic stocktakes
Broad redtape cost estimation
Regulatory budgets and one-in onea
out
Regulator stock management
Red tape targets
b
RIS stock-flow link
Ø
In-depth reviews
Embedded statutory reviews
Benchmarking
Packaged sunset reviews
Examples of regulatory reviews
•
•
•
•
Canada and Australia – periodically
Italy, Korea, Mexico
UK, USA, Japan
Many non-member countries – Balkan
countries, Vietnam
Ten key points for a successful
regulatory review
1.
Sustain top-level political support
2. Engage with regulators to maintain momentum
3. Involve businesses and other stakeholders
4. Partner with legislators
5. Plan, organise, and provide guiding criteria for the review
6. Organise regulatory reviews in stages
7. Provide capacity building and guidance
8. Measure the benefits if possible
9. Communicate to the wider public
10. Take preventive action for the flow of regulations and
envisage regular “clean up” with periodical reviews
One-In, X-Out – the future of BR?
• Requirement for regulators to optimise
– Regulation no longer a “free good”
– Avoids problem of “optimism bias” in RIA
– Thus, may be more effective than RIA in
screening out poorly justified regulation
• Transparency about regulatory costs
• But what about benefits?
Many issues to be solved
•
•
•
•
•
One for one of what?
Resource demanding, potential gaming
Institutional set up
Cross-agency offsetting
Constraints on actions of national
governments due to the role of supranational regulatory bodies
Many issues to be solved(2)
• Conceptual issues:
– What type of costs is measured;
– BAU, sunk costs;
– Future costs of existing regulation difficult to
predict, subject to major change;
– What type of regulations is included
• Diversion of scarce regpol resources
• Implications of abandoning the BCA approach
• Even stronger criticism
THANK YOU
[email protected]