On 21 June 2021, Professor Susan E. Dudley published a newsworthy article on Forbes, entitled “The US and Europe are embarking on dramatically different paths to better regulation”.
The George Washington University Director of the Regulatory Studies Center highlights that modernizing and improving regulation is a policy priority both in the EU and US. However, the approach to gain such results seems different.
Mentioning the “Modernizing Regulatory Review” memorandum, the Author displays as the Biden Administration is carrying on a more aggressive approach to address modern challenges through regulation. President Biden aims to revise US regulatory impact analysis guidance and asks agencies to evaluate the distributional consequences of regulations.
On the other side, the European Commission “Communication on Better Regulation: Joining forces to make better laws” focuses on streamlining, avoiding unnecessary burdens, the need for reliable evidence, and evaluating the present to ensure effective achievement of the regulation goals.
The Commission approach is not only directed to achieve policy objectives but also on how this is done.
Professor Dudley specifies that precise attention to the distributional impacts of regulation “can help decision-makers set more compassionate, just, and equitable policies” and “regulation would benefit from a more rigorous approach to understanding the potential benefits and burdens of alternative policies on a different segment of the population”.
The former Administrator of the OIRA concludes by highlighting as these different approaches are relevant to understand which is the best way to ensure regulations producing the highest net social benefits.
Luca Megale
is a PhD Student at LUMSA University of Rome
and tutor of the European Master in Law and Economics - EMLE (Rome term).