Publications

Regulatory sandboxes, controlled regulatory environments for the testing of novel products or processes, have garnered an increasing amount of attention over the last decade. More recently, regulatory sandboxes have been presented as innovation-friendly instruments. This article contends that fostering responsible innovation through regulatory sandboxes presents significant challenges. First, there is no consensus on what the advancement of innovation entails, how to achieve it, and what the role of regulations and regulatory sandboxes should be in it. Second, there is a lack of clarity regarding the definition and functioning of regulatory sandboxes. Third, there is a risk of regulatory capture due to the close collaboration between regulators and regulatees. Drawing on Italy’s initial experiences with general and sector-specific regulatory sandboxes and existing scholarship on experimental regulatory instruments, this article contributes to the ongoing debate on regulation and innovation by critically examining the interplay between regulatory sandboxes and the promotion of responsible innovation. Furthermore, it explores the impact of regulatory sandboxes on the evolving collaborative dimensions of public law and provides policymakers and regulators with actionable insights for navigating this innovative regulatory tool.

Il numero di ottobre della Rassegna trimestrale dell'Osservatorio AIR propone analisi sullo sviluppo di diversi strumenti della qualità della regolazione, sia relativamente alla metodologia, sia relativamente alla loro attuazione. Nei primi tre contributi si commentano altrettante recenti analisi OCSE su tre rilevanti strumenti: il test PMI, le consultazioni e le sandboxes. Nei restanti due commenti ci si concentra sull'aspetto attuativo, con un contributo di analisi sullo stato dell'arte dell'AIR e della VIR a livello nazionale (con un commento alla Relazione annuale del DAGL al Parlamento sull'applicazione di AIR e VIR) e sulla sperimentazione che il Friuli-Venezia Giulia ha effettuato in tema di enforcement, relativamente ai controlli nel settore lattiero-caseario.

In Republican and Democratic administrations, regulatory and funding decisions have both been made with close reference to benefit-cost analysis (BCA). With respect to regulation, there has been a great deal of scholarly discussion of BCA and its limits, but almost no attention has been paid to the role of BCA in government funding. That is a serious gap, not least in connection with climate-related risks, such as wildfire, drought, extreme heat, and flooding. In OMB Circular A-94, the Office of Management and Budget has long required applicants for federal funding to demonstrate that the benefits of their projects would exceed the costs. Under Circular A-94, efficiency-based BCA can produce results that fail to maximize welfare and that are also highly inequitable. The 2023 draft revision of Circular A-94, focused on welfare and equity, reflects an effort to incorporate new academic thinking over the past three decades, which is now—not uncontroversially—being brought directly into policy. At the same time, the new draft Circular A-94 raises fresh questions about how best to promote welfare, and to consider equity, in practice. Pressing issues involve the use of distributional weights in funding decisions and also the use of averages across populations, which might be seen as a form of distributional weighting. More broadly, the trajectory of this benefit-cost guidance, which predates the guidance for regulation and originally covered regulation, helps uncover the logic under which BCA has been operating and deeper challenges and tensions within BCA, in the past and going forward.

El sector público está empezando a incorporar herramientas basadas en inteligencia artificial, entre las que debemos destacar las destinadas a la lucha contra la corrupción y el fraude como una de las actividades de las administraciones más proclives al uso de herramientas basadas en inteligen- cia artificial. En el presente estudio se analiza cómo la unión de ciencias del comportamiento e inteligencia artificial pueden ser muy positivas para un adecuado control preventivo de la corrupción en la actuación de los servi- dores públicos, pero también abre la puerta a determinados riesgos propios del empleo de ambas técnicas (ciencias del comportamiento e inteligencia artificial), que deben tenerse en cuenta para así poder corregirlos.

The European Union (“EU”) Artificial Intelligence Act (the AI Act) is a legal medley. Under the banner of risk-based regulation, the AI Act combines two repertoires of European Union (EU) law, namely product safety and fundamental rights protection. Like a medley, the AI Act attempts to combine the best features of both repertoires. But like a medley, the AI Act risks delivering insufficient levels of both product safety or fundamental rights protection. This article describes these issues by reference to three classical issues of law and technology. Some adjustments to the text and spirit of the AI Act are suggested.