Publications

Regulations help governments support economic growth, social welfare and environmental protection. The challenge is to design clear, coherent, and efficient regulations and to effectively implement them. This report presents cutting-edge thinking in how to facilitate good regulatory design and implementation. Jointly developed by the OECD and the Korea Development Institute, the report builds on a series of expert papers that analyse the experience of Korea and other OECD members in designing and implementing regulatory oversight, stakeholder engagement, regulatory impact assessment and ex post evaluation. It identifies forthcoming challenges, possible solutions and areas for further analysis that can help governments in OECD member and partner countries improve their regulatory systems.

Government at a Glance provides reliable, internationally comparative data on government activities and their results in OECD countries. Where possible, it also reports data for Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation and South Africa. In many public governance areas, it is the only available source of data. It includes input, process, output and outcome indicators as well as contextual information for each country.The 2019 edition includes input indicators on public finance and employment; while processes include data on institutions, budgeting practices and procedures, human resources management, regulatory government, public procurement and digital government and open data. Outcomes cover core government results (e.g. trust, inequality reduction) and indicators on access, responsiveness, quality and citizen satisfaction for the education, health and justice sectors. Governance indicators are especially useful for monitoring and benchmarking governments’ progress in their public sector reforms.Each indicator in the publication is presented in a user-friendly format, consisting of graphs and/or charts illustrating variations across countries and over time, brief descriptive analyses highlighting the major findings conveyed by the data, and a methodological section on the definition of the indicator and any limitations in data comparability.

“Behavioural insights”, or insights derived from the behavioural and social sciences, including decision making, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, organisational and group behaviour, are being applied by governments with the aim of making public policies work better. As their use has become more widespread, however, questions are being raised about their effectiveness as well as their philosophical underpinnings. This report discusses the use and reach of behavioural insights, drawing on a comprehensive collection of over 100 applications across the world and policy sectors, including consumer protection, education, energy, environment, finance, health and safety, labour market policies, public service delivery, taxes and telecommunications. It suggests ways to ensure that this experimental approach can be successfully and sustainably used as a public policy tool.

Observers across the ideological spectrum have criticized benefit–cost analysis for as long as it has been part of the rulemaking process. Still, proponents and detractors agree that analysis has morphed into a mechanism often used by agencies to justify regulatory decisions already made. We argue that a simpler analysis of more alternatives conducted earlier in the regulatory process can resuscitate it as a tool to inform policy. Recognizing that requiring a procedure does not ensure that regulators will follow it, we offer possible remedies, including strengthening or relaxing subsequent review of proposed rules, which raise the cost of circumventing the reform or lower the cost of following it.

Despite efforts to ensure that new regulations provide net benefits to citizens, the accumulation of regulations threatens economic growth and well-being. As a result, Congress is exploring the possibility that applying fiscal budgeting concepts to regulation could bring more accountability and transparency to the regulatory process. This Essay examines the advantages and challenges of applying regulatory budgeting practices and draws some preliminary conclusions based on successful experiences in other countries

President-elect Trump committed to “a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations need to be eliminated” or what could be called a “two-for-one” requirement.
The implementation of such a regulatory “pay as you go” process raises a number of issues including: what constitutes a “new regulation”; how offsets should be measured; estimating and managing additional analytic and administrative workload; enforcement; and how to increase the likelihood such a policy survives the next presidential transition. This working paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of various options for implementing a two-for-one policy, and also discusses the role of regulatory benefits estimates in such a system.

Innovation is an essential element of the internal market. Defined by the objective of a “highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment” (Article 3 (3) TEU), innovation is a precondition of “sustainable and job-creating growth”.1 It leads to higher productivity and competitiveness2 while yielding social and environmental benefits.