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| GOVERNMENTS: BUILDING CAPACITIES FOR COMPETITIVE REGULATION |
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Good regulation is good governance. A transparent legal and regulatory environment that facilitates business start-ups, operation, and investment is vital to a country’s international competitiveness.
Regulation is one of the most widely used tools of government, and its use is increasing. The costs that regulations impose on business and consumers are very large, as much as 10 % of GDP or more, the OECD has found. If regulations are well designed and applied, these costs can be substantially reduced, and economic and social benefits can increase.
Governments can adapt to their own needs a fast-growing body of international experience and tools for good regulation. Based on hands-on experience in implementing regulatory reform in over 50 developed and emerging economies, Jacobs and Associates knows what works in specific governing conditions. We provide concrete advice to help governments regulate smarter and converge with good international practices. We promote regulatory principles such as transparency, market-friendliness, flexibility, and efficiency.
Jacobs and Associates is uniquely suited to advising governments in improving their regulatory practices. Our Managing Director wrote many of the international benchmarks that are used as guidelines around the world today for good regulatory practices. Our Directors know the challenge of governing: we have worked inside governments and with high-level commissions to assess, shape, and implement public policies: |
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- As head of the OECD Program on Regulatory Reform, Scott Jacobs drafted the first international standard on regulatory quality and the famous “Regulatory Checklist,” adopted in 1995 as the “OECD Recommendation on Improving the Quality of Government Regulation”. He was lead drafter of the 1997 OECD Report on Regulatory Reform that integrated, for the first time, governance, competition, and trade principles into a comprehensive regulatory framework. (The OECD Recommendation and reports can be downloaded at http://www.oecd.org/EN/document/0,,EN-document-2-nodirectorate-no-6-30839-2,00.html)
- Eoin Gahan is the former Chief Economist of Forfas, Ireland's industrial policy board. He directed the research of the National Competitiveness Council and instituted Ireland's Annual Competitiveness Reports and the Council's work on small business and entrepreneurship.
- Michael Wise managed the program of regulatory analysis and comment at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, working on sectors from electric power and transport to professional services and health care.
- Jong Seok Kim, professor of economics, has served on various distinguished government committees, including as Chair of the Policy Evaluation Committee of the Korean Fair Trade Commission, and as member of Korea’s Presidential Committee on Regulatory Reform.
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We are a global company that understands how different governing traditions lead to different solutions. We do not believe in “transplanting” solutions from other countries. We have worked directly with many governments to tailor international practices to their needs and conditions.
We offer numerous reform strategies that improve government capacities to simultaneously boost economic growth and protect their citizens by: |
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- Identifying regulatory policies that, by building on the latest experiences in good regulation, promote national competitiveness;
- Improving regulatory transparency and security through open regulatory processes, public consultation, codification, registers with positive security, and e-government solutions;
- Improving regulatory efficiency through tools such as regulatory impact analysis, and use of regulatory and non-regulatory policy instruments such as economic incentives;
- Developing instruments and institutions of efficient regulation and standards that support trade, investment, and market openness;
- Improving regulatory implementation through one-stop shops, use of “silence is consent”, administrative and red tape simplification, reduction of licenses and permits, better accountability, communication, and responsiveness;
- Improving due process through administrative procedure acts and clear appeals processes.
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