Policies to avoid
Policies to avoid that incumbents’ interests disproportionately affect the design of
regulation can also improve reallocation, thereby raising innovation and productivity.
Germany has made significant improvements to its regulatory policy system over the last
years, introducing systematic ex post evaluation of regulations in 2013. Nonetheless, the
capacity of the administration should focus more strongly on the analysis of the
economy-wide impacts of policies, rather than on sector-specific impacts.
Germany could
benefit from an independent standing capacity to regularly undertake comprehensive
in-depth reviews of policy areas to inform large scale regulatory reforms (OECD, 2015o).
In the Netherlands, for example, the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis conducts analysis
of economy-wide impacts of regulation for the government. In Australia, such analysis is
conducted by the productivity commission. Germany can also do more to raise
transparency of lobbyists’ involvement in public decision processes. For example, the
German lobbying register does not provide information about the potential beneficiary or
the government action targeted by lobbying (OECD, 2014c).
EU Forecast
euf:ba18a:69/nws-01