RIA – what’s this?
Regulatory Impact Assessment is an information-based analytical approach to assess probable costs, consequences, and side effects of planned policy instruments (laws, regulations, etc.). It can also be used to evaluate the real costs and consequences of policy instruments after they have been implemented.
In either case, the results are used to improve the quality of policy decisions and policy instruments, such as laws, regulations, investment programmes and public investments.
Basically, it is a means to have informed government choices: choices about policy instruments, about the design of a specific instrument, or about the need to change or discontinue an existing instrument.
