Pubblicazioni

Ex-ante impact assessment and ex-post evaluation are regulatory policy tools that help inform the policy-making process with evidence-based analysis. Both tools are geared towards raising the quality of policies and legislation. While Better Regulation is widely deemed a prerogative of the executive branch, increasingly, parliaments are also emerging as actors. This study sheds light on the parliamentary dimension of Better Regulation. Based on a survey, it maps the capacities and experiences of the national parliaments of all 27 European Union (EU) Member States and of 11 further Council of Europe countries in the field of ex-ante impact assessment and ex-post evaluation. The study reveals that roughly half of the surveyed parliaments engage in regulatory policy beyond classical parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms. Overall, these parliaments show a very diverse pattern in terms of drivers, types and depth of engagement. There is no 'one size fits all' approach.

The European Commission has repeatedly emphasized that the results of ex post legislative (EPL) evaluations should be used to improve the quality of its legislative proposals. This article aims to explain the variation in such instrumental use of EPL evaluations by the Commission. Three high-quality EPL evaluations with varying levels of use were studied in-depth to assess the influence of political factors on evaluation use. The results show that, contrary to expectations, EPL evaluations may be used instrumentally even if their recommendations are opposed by important political actors in the legislative process. This article also shows that a lack of salience of the policy field to which an EPL evaluation belongs in the eyes of the Commission could, in combination with the institution's ambition to reduce its legislative output, be a sufficient condition for the non-use of that evaluation.

Our aim is to provide an overview of the debate on the Better Regulation (BR) Agenda presentedin 2015 by the European Commission. In addition to academic literature, we also consider studiesand reports from Think Tanks, international organizations, and EU internal scrutinizing bodies.After presenting the main aspects of the debate on some overarching elements of the BR Agenda,we focus in particular on two highlights: evidence-based policymaking and the integrated policycycle. We structure the discussion around main achievements, remaining critical aspects and sug-gestions about what could be further improved. Findings show that although the Commission re-mains a front-runner when it comes to Better Regulation, more efforts are needed to go the lastmile when it comes to evidence-based policymaking and closing the policy cycle. We find thatthe great majority of arrticles welcome the ambition of th e BR Agenda reform. At the same time,they also make clear that to effectively improve regulation, further methodological guidance andconcrete efforts in implementation are needed. Another interesting finding is that the debate onthe BR Agenda is extremely varied, covering normative as well as very technical aspects. It ap-pears, though, to be confined within certain academic fields (namely political science, public ad-ministration, and law), while other fields that can be, in practice, also deeply linked to BRrelated activities are less represented

This article performs an ‘impact assessment’ of the EU Better Regulation Agenda. It considers whether there is a clear definition of the problems that the EU Better Regulation seeks to address, the evidence base, whether Better Regulation more effectively responds to those problems than alternative options, and what the costs, benefits and broader impacts of the the Agenda may be. The analysis suggests that while the Better Regulation Agenda generally promotes an open yet rational decision‐making process based on sound problem definitions and aiming at targeted solutions calibrated for optimum efficiency and effectiveness, some of its own problem assumptions remain unproven, it possesses contradictory traits and risks being counter productive. Furthermore, while EU Better Regulation may have benefits, it also entails significant costs that should not be overlooked. This assessment reveals the complex and multifaceted nature of EU Better Regulation, and the need to hold it to its own standards.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.

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As algorithmic systems become more critical to decision making across many parts of society, there is increasing interest in how they can be scrutinised and assessed for societal impact, and regulatory and normative compliance. This report is primarily aimed at policymakers, to inform more accurate and focused policy conversations. It may also be helpful to anyone who creates, commissions or interacts with an algorithmic system and wants to know what methods or approaches exist to assess and evaluate that system.

Some argue that the global rise of behavioral approaches challenges the rationalist tradition in public policy. Others fear that it could undermine deliberation and public reasoning. This paper focuses on the worldwide rise and spread of behavioral expertise and behavioral public policy. It provides a general insight in terms of the role of expertise, the science-policy nexus and the distribution of epistemic competences in public policy. Based on an extensive literature review, the emergence and consequences of behavioral-expert networks are assessed. It will be suggested that it is necessary to break free from the microfocus proposed by behavioral public policy and to pay more attention to the institutional and cultural constellations of knowledge- and decision-making in democracies.

Behavioural Insights Teams (BITs) have gained prominence in government as policy advisors and are increasingly linked to the way policy instruments are designed. Despite the rise of BITs as unique knowledge brokers mediating the use of behavioral insights for policymaking, they remain underexplored in the growing literature on policy advice and advisory systems. The article emphasizes that the visible impact that BITs have on the content of policy instruments, the level of political support they garner and their structural diversity in different political departments, all set them apart from typical policy brokers in policy advisory systems connecting the science–policy divide.

One-stop shops have emerged as a way for governments to provide better services and improve regulatory delivery to citizens and business. The OECD Best Practice Principles for Regulatory Policy: One-Stop Shops for Citizens and Business offer a set of practical considerations for designing, operating, and reviewing one-stop shops. The Principles are based on a series of case studies and cover a wide range of tools and institutional arrangements to help governments improve their one-stop shops. This report is part of a series on “best practice principles” produced under the auspices of the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee. As with other reports in the series, it extends and elaborates on principles highlighted in the 2012 Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance.