Assessing the Impacts of Proposed Laws and Regulations

Assessing the Impacts of Proposed Laws and Regulations deals with policy assessment and RegulatoryImpact Analysis (RIA), or the ex ante assessment of how proposed legislation and regulations will affect acountry’s economy, society, budget and existing laws, international agreements, etc. Through RIAgovernments can improve the quality of their interventions by ensuring that the impacts, both intendedand unintended, of proposed legislation and regulations are assessed in advance, and form an input intodecision-making. This is especially relevant for countries of Central and Eastern Europe in light ofEuropean Integration and the need for economic management.This publication is a follow-up to a seminar that was held in Riga on 2 and 3 October 1996 for publicofficials of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It comprises a brief description of the highlights of the seminardiscussions and the three papers that were prepared for the seminar by experts from Canada, France andthe United States. Canada and the United States are leaders in RIA technology, and France is adoptingnew methodologies.