The OECD has rekindled the debate on measuring the performance of regulatory instruments and regulatory oversight institutions. This report presents and appraises indicators suitable for measuring the performance of smart regulation programs. These reform programmes cover the production and implementation of regulation across sectors, enhance governmental capacity to provide high-quality regulation, and are neutral to the total level of state intervention and regulatory activity. It distinguishes between various types of indicators situated at different points of regulatory policy: the Input to regulatory action, the Process of guiding regulators through requirements, the Output generated during a given period of time, the Intermediate outcomes such as behavioural and cognitive changes, and the Final outcomes. After having examined the usage of indicators in various OECD member states, the report appraises a large number of regulatory indicators by using a set of criteria, suggesting how and when they should be adopted, and for which purposes.

This study provides a critical literature review of the theory and quantitative evidence of the impact of regulatory policy. The theory is addressed through a causal chain analysis which connects regulatory policy through the “better regulation” agenda to economic outcomes. The literature review is intended to provide a reasonably representative sample of studies on regulatory policy and governance in general; administrative simplification and reducing regulatory burdens; ex ante and ex post analyses of regulations; consultation, transparency and accountability; and regulatory institutions. The main policy lessons are highlighted, alongside discussion of the limitations of the literature in terms of content and coverage.

This paper develops a framework for systematically evaluating the performance of regulations and regulatory policies. Offering an accessible account of the fundamentals of evaluation, the paper explains the need for indicators to measure relevant outcomes of concern and research designs to support inferences about the extent to which a regulation or regulatory policy under evaluation has actually caused any change in the measured outcomes. Indicators depend on the specific problems of concern to policymakers as well as on data availability, but the best indicators will generally be those that measure the ultimate problem the regulation or policy was intended to solve. In addition, research designs should seek to emulate the structure of laboratory experiments in order to permit valid causal inferences about the impacts of a regulation or policy under review. The paper discusses strategies for controlling confounders and attributing broad economic effects to regulation.