Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. High-quality laws promote national welfare and growth, while badly designed laws hinder growth, harm the environment and put the health of citizens at risk. This report analyses practices to improve the quality of laws ...

The practice of regulatory impact assessment has long needed a critical evaluation. This volume, which is interdisciplinary and international, and combines academic and practitioner insights, hits the spot to great effect. Colin Scott, UCD College of Business and Law and UCD School of Law, Ireland Better state regulation is a key component of economic reform. This is the first book to comprehensively explore international experience in the use of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), which involves assessing the potential benefits and costs of any regulatory change. The contributors reveal that RIA is being adopted by an increasing number of countries as a route to better regulation with varying degrees of success. The book includes contributions from leading experts on regulatory reform and introduces a range of case studies from developed, developing and transitional economies. Comprehensive in its approach, this book contributes to the literature on evidence-based decision making as part of the new public management. By rigorously examining the principles of better regulation and focusing on the problem of applicability and adoption of RIA practices around the world, it will greatly aid understanding of regulatory policy design and implementation. The book will be invaluable for academics and researchers of public policy and management in developed, developing and transitional countries. It will also be of great practical relevance to government administrators and policymakers challenged by the need to understand the scope and limitations of RIA.

The case for a smarter “prosumer law” approach to Internet regulation that would better protect online innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights. Internet use has become ubiquitous in the past two decades, but governments, legislators, and their regulatory agencies have struggled to keep up with the rapidly changing Internet technologies and uses. In this groundbreaking collaboration, regulatory lawyer Christopher Marsden and computer scientist Ian Brown analyze the regulatory shaping of “code”—the technological environment of the Internet—to achieve more economically efficient and socially just regulation. They examine five “hard cases” that illustrate the regulatory crisis: privacy and data protection; copyright and creativity incentives; censorship; social networks and user-generated content; and net neutrality. The authors describe the increasing “multistakeholderization” of Internet governance, in which user groups argue for representation in the closed business-government dialogue, seeking to bring in both rights-based and technologically expert perspectives. Brown and Marsden draw out lessons for better future regulation from the regulatory and interoperability failures illustrated by the five cases. They conclude that governments, users, and better functioning markets need a smarter “prosumer law” approach. Prosumer law would be designed to enhance the competitive production of public goods, including innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights.

As millions of Americans struggle to find work in the wake of the Great Recession, politicians from both parties look to regulation in search of an economic cure. Some claim that burdensome regulations undermine private sector competitiveness and job growth, while others argue that tough new regulations actually create jobs at the same time that they provide other benefits. Does Regulation Kill Jobs? reveals the complex reality of regulation that supports neither partisan view. Leading legal scholars, economists, political scientists, and policy analysts show that individual regulations can at times induce employment shifts across firms, sectors, and regions—but regulation overall is neither a prime job killer nor a key job creator. The challenge for policymakers is to look carefully at individual regulatory proposals to discern any job shifting they may cause and then to make regulatory decisions sensitive to anticipated employment effects. Drawing on their analyses, contributors recommend methods for obtaining better estimates of job impacts when evaluating regulatory costs and benefits. They also assess possible ways of reforming regulatory institutions and processes to take better account of employment effects in policy decision-making. Does Regulation Kills Jobs? tackles what has become a heated partisan issue with exactly the kind of careful analysis policymakers need in order to make better policy decisions, providing insights that will benefit both politicians and citizens who seek economic growth as well as the protection of public health and safety, financial security, environmental sustainability, and other civic goals. Contributors: Matthew D. Adler, Joseph E. Aldy, Christopher Carrigan, Cary Coglianese, E. Donald Elliott, Rolf Färe, Ann Ferris, Adam M. Finkel, Wayne B. Gray, Shawna Grosskopf, Michael A. Livermore, Brian F. Mannix, Jonathan S. Masur, Al McGartland, Richard Morgenstern, Carl A. Pasurka, Jr., William A. Pizer, Eric A. Posner, Lisa A. Robinson, Jason A. Schwartz, Ronald J. Shadbegian, Stuart Shapiro.

Better Regulation in the EU is a perennial and topical question which has important implications for the future direction of EU law. While actions directed at improving the quality and accessibility of EU regulation are not novel, in recent years the Better Regulation Agenda has significantly affected the structural organisation and day-to-day operation of the EU legislative process. Yet, many questions about the future of the Agenda remain, not least in light of Brexit. Exploring the Better Regulation Agenda (and its relation to the overall EU legal and political order) necessitates an integrated, interdisciplinary approach. This edited volume presents insights from economics, political science and legal scholarship. Furthermore, to allow full understanding, it examines institutional practice, where the Agenda is made and shaped on a daily basis. Hence, the book features contributions from the perspective of the work of the main EU institutions: the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council and the Court of Justice. This results in a seminal overview of the subject, of interest to scholars and practitioners alike.

Federal regulations affect nearly every area of our lives and interest in them is increasing. However, many people have no idea how regulations are developed or how they have an impact on our lives. Regulation: A Primer by Susan Dudley and Jerry Brito provides an accessible overview of regulatory theory, analysis, and practice. The Primer examines the constitutional underpinnings of federal regulation and discusses who writes and enforces regulation and how they do it. Published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, it also provides insights into the different varieties of regulation and how to analyze whether a regulatory proposal makes citizens better or worse off. Each chapter discusses key aspects of regulation and provides further readings for those interested in exploring these topics in more detail.

The discourse of 'Better Regulation' is a hot topic, intimately associated with the drive for cost savings and a more efficient economy. In the UK and in the EU, rule-makers have lately endeavoured to achieve a more satisfactory balance between the demands of proper protection from market failure and inequity on the one hand, and commercial freedom and the potential for innovation on the other. But who is the regulator listening to, and what effect does this have on the regulatory pattern governing the integrating EU market? What is best practice in the matter of regulatory assessment. The essays in this collection explore these and other questions and will foster greater understanding of UK and EU regulation, the accountability issues involved, and problems of enforcement. It is no coincidence that since efforts to construct a Constitution for Europe have stalled the attention of policy-makers, politicians and the business community has turned instead to the quest for Better Regulation - or perhaps, it might be said, a "Better European Union".

The goal of regulatory reform is to improve national economies and enhance their ability to adapt to change. Better regulation and structural reforms are necessary complements to sound fiscal and macroeconomic policies. Continual and far-reaching ...

As more people live longer, the need for quality long-term care for the elderly will increase dramatically. This volume examines the current system of nursing home regulations, and proposes an overhaul to better provide for those confined to such facilities. It determines the need for regulations, and concludes that the present regulatory system is inadequate, stating that what is needed is not more regulation, but better regulation. This long-anticipated study provides a wealth of useful background information, in-depth study, and discussion for nursing home administrators, students, and teachers in the health care field; professionals involved in caring for the elderly; and geriatric specialists.

During the middle third of the 20th century, workers in most industrialized countries secured a substantial measure of job security, whether through legislation, contract or social practice. This “standard employment contract,” as it was known, became the foundation of an impressive array of rights and entitlements, including social insurance and pensions, protection against unsociable working conditions, and the right to bargain collectively. Recent changes in technology and the global economy, however, have dramatically eroded this traditional form of employment. Employers now value flexibility over stability, and increasingly hire employees for short-term or temporary work. Many countries have also repealed labor laws, relaxed employee protections, and reduced state-provided benefits. As the old system of worker protection declines, how can labor regulation be improved to protect workers? In Rethinking Workplace Regulation, nineteen leading scholars from ten countries and half a dozen disciplines present a sweeping tour of the latest policy experiments across the world that attempt to balance worker security and the new flexible employment paradigm. Edited by noted socio-legal scholars Katherine V.W. Stone and Harry Arthurs, Rethinking Workplace Regulation presents case studies on new forms of dispute resolution, job training programs, social insurance and collective representation that could serve as policy models in the contemporary industrialized world. The volume leads with an intriguing set of essays on legal attempts to update the employment contract. For example, Bruno Caruso reports on efforts in the European Union to “constitutionalize” employment and other contracts to better preserve protective principles for workers and to extend their legal impact. The volume then turns to the field of labor relations, where promising regulatory strategies have emerged. Sociologist Jelle Visser offers a fresh assessment of the Dutch version of the ‘flexicurity’ model, which attempts to balance the rise in nonstandard employment with improved social protection by indexing the minimum wage and strengthening rights of access to health insurance, pensions, and training. Sociologist Ida Regalia provides an engaging account of experimental local and regional “pacts” in Italy and France that allow several employers to share temporary workers, thereby providing workers job security within the group rather than with an individual firm. The volume also illustrates the power of governments to influence labor market institutions. Legal scholars John Howe and Michael Rawling discuss Australia's innovative legislation on supply chains that holds companies at the top of the supply chain responsible for employment law violations of their subcontractors. Contributors also analyze ways in which more general social policy is being renegotiated in light of the changing nature of work. Kendra Strauss, a geographer, offers a wide-ranging comparative analysis of pension systems and calls for a new model that offers “flexible pensions for flexible workers.” With its ambitious scope and broad inquiry, Rethinking Workplace Regulation illustrates the diverse innovations countries have developed to confront the policy challenges created by the changing nature of work. The experiments evaluated in this volume will provide inspiration and instruction for policymakers and advocates seeking to improve worker’s lives in this latest era of global capitalism.