Comparative Analysis of Regulatory Governance Regimes in the Oecd
Abstract: Relying on surveys managed by the OECD among its members states since the early 2010’s, we apply textual analysis to the description of the status of regulatory agencies (RAs) in different European countries and sectors, together with characterization of their relationships with various stakeholders, and of their duties and means. Four independent dimensions seems to characterize regulatory governance regimes: the independence from the government; the level of discretion of the RA; the scope of its market monitoring capabilities; its ability to ensure transparency of the supply side. Our regulatory governance indicators exhibit significant correlations with industry evolutions and performances. Strong contrasts exist however across industries. This might reflect partly differences in terms of "maturity". Younger RAs seems characterized by more informality and an access to a poorer set of regulatory tools. However, it is not for sure that sectoral regulators are converging toward a common model, since they are operating in industries with highly contrasted economies which might result in contrasted agendas for the RA. In the e-communication sector, regulatory governance seems critical to the performance in terms of quality of service (broadband), while in the electricity industry, the main objective of the RAs seems to be the price of energy, even at the cost of the environmental quality of electricity. In the transportation industries (air and rail), the focus is on the volume/development of traffic and on the enhancement of safety. As compared to previous studies, our results differ on two main grounds. First, we point out that the degree of discretion of RA's powers matters (in addition to independence). We also highlight that RAs have to promote transparency (in addition to designing markets and setting tariffs). Over the past years in Europe, the most significant evolutions have concerned these two overlooked dimensions of regulatory governance.
