Publications

As behavioural sciences are unearthing the complex cognitive framework in which people make decisions, policymakers seem increasingly ready to design behaviourally-informed regulations to induce behaviour change in the interests of the individual and society. After discussing what behavioural sciences have to offer to administrative law, this paper explores the extent to which administrative law may accommodate their findings into the regulatory process. After presenting the main regulatory tools capable of operationalizing behavioural insights, it builds a case for integrating them into public policymaking. In particular, this paper examines the challenges and frictions of behavioural regulation with regard both to established features of administrative law, such as the principle of legality, impartiality and judicial oversight and more innovative control mechanisms such as the use of randomized control trials to test new public policies. This analysis suggests the need to develop a legal framework capable of ensuring that behavioural considerations may inform the regulatory process while at the same time guaranteeing citizens' constitutional rights and freedoms vis-à-vis the Regulatory State.

The present article examines the concept of effectiveness in relation to European legislation. Effectiveness is a concern associated with European legislation since the early days of the internal market and one that is assuming increasingly disconcerting dimensions. However, in its existing understanding, effectiveness is almost exclusively linked to transposition, implementation and enforcement of European legislation by the member states and is not seen as an indicator of legislative quality that pemeates the entire process of legislative design and drafting. This article maintains that the dynamic concept of legislative effectiveness is linked not only to the transposition and the implementation of legislation but primarily to choices of legislative design and drafting. The design and drafting of European legislation pose specific challenges to me capacity of legislation to achieve common minimum standards and results. These challenges are explored in detail by looking into the European Equality Directives (Directives 2000/78/EC and 2000/43/EC). This article concludes that effectiveness as a law making principle is not adequately reflected in the existing European law-making toolkit and a new approach is required that sets effectiveness at the ‘heart’ of me law-making culture and process.

The objective of this paper is to introduce the main tools used to manage the flow and the stock of regulation with special attention to those based on economic analysis, their advantages and weak points, the consequences of their use in public sector organization, procedures and, in general, in the relationship between regulators and their targets. Discussion is also devoted to conditions for improving their efficacy, since the tools need to be used selectively, and require an agenda-setting phase as well as periodic retrospective analysis of existing rules as used in the whole regulation life cycle. Therefore, it is crucial to understand what these good regulation tools are really intended for, and to avoid their over or under-evaluation, both of which could be influential in reforms made partially or in name only. At the same time, their limits could incentivize the search for innovative solutions, such as a special attention to the real needs and behaviour of people in the design of new regulation, as well as in its measurement and reform

How regulations are implemented and enforced, and how compliance is ensured and promoted, are critical determinants of whether a regulatory system is working as intended. Inspections are one of the most important ways to enforce regulations and to ensure regulatory compliance. Based on the 2014 OECD Best Practice Principles for Regulatory Enforcement and Inspection, this Toolkit offers government officials, regulators, stakeholders and experts a simple tool for assessing the inspection and enforcement system in a given jurisdiction, institution or structure. Its checklist of 12 criteria can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses, gauge actual performance, and pinpoint areas for improvement. The OECD Best Practice Principles for Regulatory Policy: Regulatory Enforcement and Inspections seeks to construct an overarching framework to support initiatives on improving regulatory enforcement through inspections, making them more effective, efficient, less burdensome for those who are inspected and at the same time less resource-demanding for governments. The principles address the design of the policies, institutions and tools to promote effective compliance – and the process of reforming inspection services to achieve results. The report complements the 2012 Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance and is intended to assist countries in reforming inspections and developing cross-cutting policies on regulatory enforcement. The principles have an informal non-binding status of a guidance approved at the Regulatory Policy Committee level.