Business Regulation and Public Policy

This book argues that keeping business regulation compliance costs low benefits everyone. It introduces a new business impact assessment to improve business and public policy decision making, and it includes case studies and examples from around the world.

For years, businesses have complained about the costs of regulatory compliance. On the other hand, society is becoming increasingly aware of the environmental, safety, health, financial, and other risks of business activity. Government oversight seems to be one of the answers to safeguard against these risks. But how can we deregulate and regulate without jeopardizing our public goals or acting as a brake on economic growth? Many instruments are available to assess the effects of laws regulating business, including the regulatory impact assessment (RIA), which contains cost/benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, risk analysis, and cost assessments. This book argues that public goals will be achieved more effectively if compliance costs of the enterprises are as low as possible. Highlighting examples from a wide spectrum of industries and countries, the authors propose a new kind of RIA, the business impact assessment (BIA), designed to improve both business and public policy decision making.

Phases of awareness from 1750 on-wards.- Best practice referring compliance costs reductions policies in EU and elsewhere from a historical perspec-tive.- Theory and measurement of compli-ance costs.- How to measure compliance costs of information obligations?- How to measure compliance costs of substantive obligations.- Best practice referring compliance costs reduction policies: the case of American Regulatory Flexibility Act.- The Case of Management and Budget Office USA.- Tailoring regulation: Dutch experi-ences with reducing compliance costs.- The Case of New Zealand.- What is the role of benefits of regula-tions from the perspective of Dubai?- Standardization and compliance costs, relevant development at EU-level.- The Case of developing countries.- RIA as a discovery in developing countries.- Why a focus on enterprises?- Compliance costs and the policy proc-ess.- How to build regulatory reforms and regulatory systems?- Do we need new institutions to im-prove regulatory quality?- How can ICT help changing compli-ance costs in the next twenty years?- Macro-economic politics and deregu-lation.- Development of a RIA coordination system.