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This section regularly examines Regulatory Impact Assessment (IA) at three levels: the EU, the Member States and internationally. Contributions aim to cover aspects such as the interface between IA and risk analysis, looking at methodologies as well as legal and political science-related issues. Contributions are meant to report and critically assess recent developments in the field, develop strategic thinking, and make constructive recommendations for improving performance in IA processes.

The requirement that federal agencies prepare economic studies--regulatory impact analyses (RIA)--for major new environmental and other social regulations has been controversial since its implementation almost thirty years ago. In a new RFF report, experts with differing perspectives take a hard look at several recent RIAs issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and explore what reforms would benefit the current system. The publication grew out of a series of workshops drawing upon views from government officials, legal scholars, and academic experts.

The requirement that federal agencies prepare economic studies--regulatory impact analyses (RIA)--for major new environmental and other social regulations has been controversial since its implementation almost thirty years ago. In a new RFF report, experts with differing perspectives take a hard look at several recent RIAs issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and explore what reforms would benefit the current system. The publication grew out of a series of workshops drawing upon views from government officials, legal scholars, and academic experts.

Over the past decades, considerable debate has emerged surrounding the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to analyze and make recommendations for environmental and safety regulations. Critics argue that CBA forces values on unquantifiable factors, that it does not adequately measure benefits across generations, and that it is not adaptable in situations of uncertainty. Proponents, on the other hand, believe that a well-done CBA provides useful, albeit imperfect, information to policymakers precisely because of the standard metrics that are applied across the analysis. Largely absent from the d

The politics and economics of regulatory impact assessment / Claire A. Dunlop and Claudio M. Radaelli -- Regulatory impact assessment in legal studies / Anne C.M. Meuwese and Stijn van Voorst -- Approaches to cost-benefit analysis / Jason A. Schwartz -- Interpretive analysis and regulatory impact assessment / James R. Palmer -- Compliance and delivery analysis / Donald Macrae -- Towards a simpler and practical approach / Scott Jacobs -- Standard cost model / Paola Coletti -- Social impact assessment / Lorna Schrefler -- Courts and regulatory impact assessment / Alberto Alemanno -- Gender and regulatory impact assessment / Francesca Gains -- Consultation / Florentin Blanc and Giuseppa Ottimofiore -- Risk analysis / Elisa Vecchione -- Environment / John Turnpenny, Duncan Russel, Andrew Jordan, Alan Bond and William R. Sheate -- Energy / Jacopo Torriti -- Agriculture / Duncan Russel -- Enterprise and competition / David Parker -- International development / Camilla Adelle -- Diffusion across OECD countries / Fabrizio De Francesco -- Cross-national diffusion in Europe / Ioannis Lianos, Mihály Fazekas and Maksim Karliuk -- European Union / Andrea Renda -- United States of America / William F. West -- Latin America / Alketa Peci -- Australia and New Zealand / Peter G.H. Carroll -- South Korea / Tae-Yun Kim and Song-June Kim -- Developing Countries / Colin Kirkpatrick -- Implementing in the laboratory: scorecards for appraising regulatory impact assessment / Oliver Fritsch and Jonathan C. Kamkhaji -- Designing performance frameworks: the case of the OECD / Christiane Arndt and Gregory Bounds -- Implementing in the classroom: teaching regulatory impact assessment / Lorenzo Allio -- Implementing regulatory impact assessment in the real world: practitioner stories from the field / John Howell

The basic goal of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is to improve regulatory quality by ex ante selecting the best alternative using cost-benefit analysis and enabling ex post evaluation of the real impact. Both goals are achievable only when RIA is properly implemented for all potential sources of regulation, including parliamentary amendments to bills. But these are usually not subject to RIA. This paper analyzes all bills and related amendments passed in the Czech Republic in 2010 and finds that about 15% of the adopted amendments, distributed among 17 of 34 bills, alter the original impacts of the bill. The results suggest that RIAs are often inapplicable for the ex post evaluation and the best alternative identified by RIA may not be achieved.

In 2007/2008, the Czech Republic has introduced governmental Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) to the central government level. This procedure has established formal rules binding to all legislative bodies. The process administration of RIA was entrusted to the Panel for a Regulatory Reform and Effective Public Administration and its permanent Committee for Quality Control of the Regulatory Impact Assessment. At the end of 2011, the RIA process has been changed and a new, independent Committee for the control of RIA proposals has been established. Based on minutes from the Committee's discussions, the presented paper analyses fundamental trends in the RIA process in the 2008–2012 period. The general statistical overview indicates that the volume of legislation reviewed under RIA gradually decreases. On the other hand, the number of proposals not recommended by the Committee for an approval decreased from 7.1 % in 2008 to 6.9 % in 2011. After introducing the new RIA rules, the number of proposals not recommended by the new Committee for an approval during the first discussion of a proposal has dramatically increased to 81 %.

Abstract not avaiable.