Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
Abstract
Analysis is a tool for making important legislative and regulatory decisions but it is also a way of looking back to see whether decisions made in the past have been good ones. How well have legal rules actually worked in practice? Answering this question is crucial, not only for improving regulation and legislation in the future, but also for improving forward-looking regulatory impact analysis (RIA). This article was originally presented as the keynote address at the 22nd Anniversary International Conference of the Korea Legislation Research Institute in August 2012. It highlights what social scientists have told us generally about the role of analysis in decision making and why prospective RIA has been adopted around the world. It contrasts prospective RIA with regulatory impact evaluation (RIE), showing that even procedures that require prospective RIA can be properly subjected to ex post evaluation and that such evaluation is the only way to determine the true value of prospective RIA. It also explains the crucial connection between looking back and thinking ahead, concluding that without more and better retrospective research -- RIEs -- prospective RIAs cannot achieve their full potential over the long term.
Keywords
Regulatory impact analysis, RIA, regulatory impact assessment, legislative impact analysis, retrospective evaluation, regulatory impact evaluation, public administration, decision making
Publication Title
Korean Journal of Law & Legislation
Repository Citation
Coglianese, Cary, "Thinking Ahead, Looking Back: Assessing the Value of Regulatory Impact Analysis and Procedures for Its Use" (2013). All Faculty Scholarship. 2125.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/2125
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Legislation Commons, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons, Public Administration Commons
Publication Citation
3 Korean J. L. & Legis. 5 (2013)