The first five years of the EU Impact Assessment system: a risk economics perspective on gaps between rationale and practice

Torriti, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0569-039X and Lofstedt, R. (2012) The first five years of the EU Impact Assessment system: a risk economics perspective on gaps between rationale and practice. Journal of Risk Research, 15 (2). pp. 169-186. ISSN 1466-4461 doi: 10.1080/13669877.2011.634512

Abstract/Summary

In 2003 the European Commission started using Impact Assessment (IA) as the main empirical basis for its major policy proposals. The aim was to systematically assess ex ante the economic, social and environmental impacts of EU policy proposals. In parallel, research proliferated in search for theoretical grounds for IAs and in an attempt to evaluate empirically the performance of the first sets of IAs produced by the European Commission. This paper combines conceptual and evaluative studies carried out in the first five years of EU IAs. It concludes that the great discrepancy between rationale and practice calls for a different theoretical focus and a higher emphasis on evaluating empirically crucial risk economics aspects of IAs, such as the value of statistical life, price of carbon, the integration of macroeconomic modelling and scenario analysis.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/26303
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of the Built Environment > Energy and Environmental Engineering group
Uncontrolled Keywords	better regulation, European Union, Impact Assessment, risk economics
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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