The Practice and Discourse of Legislative Evaluation in Portugal

ENBR Working Paper No 12/2007

19 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2011

See all articles by Nuno Garoupa

Nuno Garoupa

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School

Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça

Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) - Law School

Date Written: October 15, 2007

Abstract

The present article intends to assess, in a systematic and critical way, what has been done in Portugal regarding the so-called Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), while at the same time, contributing to its development and maturity. A careful and in depth analysis of the Portuguese institutional discourse towards regulatory reform since its early days is provided, with special emphasis given to the legal instruments deployed by the current Government. Our aim is to provide a sound and rigorous explanation to the in existence of a "true" or "substantive" RIA system actually operating in Portugal. Reflecting and borrowing from international experiences and practices, from OECD and EU documents and Portuguese scholarship, we demonstrate that there is a huge gap between the reality of impact assessment and its political discourse in Portugal. We argue that the lack of comprehensive RIA is inevitability stemming from the shortcomings of the current Portuguese system. Indeed, the "formal" system has been so far incapable of providing us with a single example of an impact assessment study.

Keywords: theory of legislation, regulation, law, regulatory impact assessment, better regulation

JEL Classification: K20, L51

Suggested Citation

Garoupa, Nuno and Vilaça, Guilherme Vasconcelos, The Practice and Discourse of Legislative Evaluation in Portugal (October 15, 2007). ENBR Working Paper No 12/2007 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1968707 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1968707

Nuno Garoupa

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School ( email )

3301 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
United States

Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça (Contact Author)

Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) - Law School ( email )

Río Hondo No.1
Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City
Mexico

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