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Regulatory Impact Assessment
Between Effectiveness and Efficiency: The System of “In-Depth” RIAs in the Swiss Federal Decision-Making
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Extract
The Swiss Federal Council (FC, the Swiss government) published a report on reducing administrative burdens on business in August 2011, in which it addressed also the performance of Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) at the federal level. The report reviews the measures undertaken by the FC since 2007 and sketches initiatives to be launched throughout the next four years. Administrative simplification and the reduction of regulatory costs have gained on relevance in the Swiss policy and political debate in the past few months – not least as a part of the campaign for the national political elections held in October 2011, with the economic crisis as a background. A national political party has launched a popular initiative against over-bureaucratisation, and the issue is brought forward by a number of stakeholders too.
The August 2011 report also fits into a wider debate about the legitimacy of RIA systems and the right balance between their effectiveness and efficiency. This brief note draws from a comprehensive evaluation of the system of in-depth RIAs in Switzerland, which supported the government's report and developed some avenues for further investigating those dimensions.
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References
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