This is a transcript of a key-note lecture in the "Driving Risk-Based Regulation" conference, presented on 24 February 2021. The slides to the presentation are available at the end of the transcript (below). Kia ora. It is my pleasure to kick off today's sessions in this excellent online conference. Since 2013, New Zealand's regulatory agencies … Continue reading The role of risk-based thinking in regulatory stewardship
Author: Jeroen van der Heijden
What makes a modern and entrepreneurial regulator?
Kia ora and thank you for joining this first session of the 2020 G-REG conference. The G-REG community has asked me to tell all about what it means to be a modern and entrepreneurial regulator over the next half hour, or so. That is no easy task, but I have happily accepted it. Being a … Continue reading What makes a modern and entrepreneurial regulator?
Brief book review – Fundamentals of Regulatory Design
Malcolm Sparrow (2020), Self-published, 139 pages Locked-down by the global pandemic and unable to deliver his regulatory training around the world, Professor Malcolm Sparrow (Harvard University) decided to put the core content of his training programs on paper. In Fundamentals of Regulatory Design, he guides us through some of the main themes that he usually … Continue reading Brief book review – Fundamentals of Regulatory Design
Behavioural insight and regulatory practice: Available as open access paper
The use of insights from the behavioural sciences in the development and implementation of regulation has quickly received interest from governments and scholarship around the globe. There are good reasons for this. Reading the experiences reported by policymakers and regulators, it becomes clear that using insights from the behavioural sciences ‘allows policy-makers to better understand … Continue reading Behavioural insight and regulatory practice: Available as open access paper
Responsive regulation in practice: Now available as open access paper
Published in 1992, the book Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate has become a central work in the canon of regulatory scholarship. The book is a collaboration between Professors Ian Ayres (Yale University) and John Braithwaite (Australian National University), and builds on Braithwaite’s earlier studies on regulation, enforcement and compliance. Responsive regulation is probably best … Continue reading Responsive regulation in practice: Now available as open access paper
Brief book review – The Governor’s Dilemma: Indirect Governance Beyond Principals and Agents
Kenneth W. Abbott, Philipp Genschel, Duncan Snidal, and Bernhard Zangl (Eds), (2020), Oxford University Press, 301 pages While not directly targeted at regulators, The Governor’s Dilemma: Indirect Governance Beyond Principals and Agents is of interest to an audience of regulatory practitioners, managers, and scholars. The book, edited by Professor Kenneth Abbott (Arizona State University) and … Continue reading Brief book review – The Governor’s Dilemma: Indirect Governance Beyond Principals and Agents
Responsive Regulation (5): Ethical and epistemic challenges
To conclude this review of the literature on responsive regulation, I will zoom in on ethical and epistemic challenges. In other words, is it proper for governments to base their regulatory responses on the actions of their targets? Is this not violating the assumption that like-cases should be treated alike? To what extent (and how) … Continue reading Responsive Regulation (5): Ethical and epistemic challenges
Responsive regulation (4): Evidence and findings
We now have a good understanding of the breadth and depth of responsive regulation. We have seen that the theory provides a broad set of heuristics and hands-on strategies to improve regulatory practice—and that it is about much more than the famous regulatory pyramid. We have also seen that responsive regulation is applied in a … Continue reading Responsive regulation (4): Evidence and findings
Responsive regulation (3): Examples
In the previous blog post on the evolution and success of the ideas underpinning Responsive Regulation, I have summed up responsive regulation as a set of heuristics and a set of strategies. Perhaps the best-known heuristic is the notion of escalation from less-intrusive to more-intrusive regulatory responses if non-compliance is found. Likewise, maybe the most … Continue reading Responsive regulation (3): Examples
Responsive regulation (2): Evolution and success
It is not easy to capture the essence of responsive regulation[i]: “Responsive regulation is not a clearly defined program or a set of prescriptions concerning the best way to regulate. (…) Responsiveness is rather an attitude that enables the blossoming of a wide variety of regulatory approaches [none of which are the] optimal or best … Continue reading Responsive regulation (2): Evolution and success