The Penn Program on Regulation (PPR) released the largest-ever single collection of research papers and reports aimed at understanding and promoting the excellent management of regulatory agencies. The more than twenty research papers and reports produced under the auspices of PPR’s Best-in-Class Regulator Initiative, sponsored by the Alberta Energy Regulator, offer essential guidance to regulators around the world about how to improve their performance.
“This is a must-read, treasure trove for anyone seeking to improve the work of regulators in any democratic society,” said Cary Coglianese, PPR’s Director and the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
“We asked experts from around the world, ‘What makes a regulator excellent?’” said Coglianese. Their answers can be found in the collected work that is now available on the Best-in-Class Regulator Initiative website.
Among the contributing experts to the project are John Braithwaite from the Australian National University, Dan Esty from Yale University, John Graham of Indiana University, Bridget Hutter of the London School of Economics, and Wendy Wagner of the University of Texas. Their papers will appear next year in a volume edited by Coglianese and published by the Brookings Institution Press.
In addition to the more than dozen expert papers on regulatory excellence released, PPR also released three summary reports on regulatory dialogues it held this past spring on regulatory excellence, including two held in Alberta, Canada. The third dialogue, held at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, brought together experts from around the world.
“We learned a tremendous amount from all of these dialogue sessions,” Coglianese said.
In addition to the dialogue summary reports, PPR released five major research papers on regulatory priority setting, enforcement and instrument design, institutional structure, organizational culture, and transparency and public engagement.
PPR also launched a week-long series on RegBlog.org that draws on the Best-in-Class Regulator Initiative. This RegBlog series includes extended keynote remarks delivered by Dame Deirdre Hutton, the Chair of the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, at the project’s dialogue session held at Penn Law in March.
Video-recordings of opening presentations at the dialogue held in Calgary in April, including remarks by Jim Ellis, the President and CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator, were also just released.
All of the papers and reports released are available on the Best-in-Class Regulator Initiative website: www.bestinclassregulator.org. Later this year, PPR will release a final report that draws on all of the material released.
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Best-in-Class Regulator Initiative Research
Expert Papers
Dialogue Reports
- Cary Coglianese and Shari Shapiro, Summary Report: Penn Dialogue on Regulatory Excellence (March 19-20, 2015)
- Harris Sokoloff, Shari Shapiro, and Cary Coglianese, Summary Report: Aboriginal Dialogue on Regulatory Excellence (March 26, 2015)
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- Michele Anderson, Visuals@Work, Graphical Reporting of the Aboriginal Dialogue (March 26, 2015)
- Cary Coglianese and Shari Shapiro, Summary Report: Alberta Dialogue on Regulatory Excellence (April 12-14, 2015)
Research Papers
- Christopher Carrigan and Elise Harrington, Choices in Regulatory Program Design and Enforcement
- Christopher Carrigan and Lindsey Poole, Structuring Regulators: The Effects of Organizational Design on Regulatory Behavior and Performance
- Adam Finkel, Daniel Walters, Angus Corbett, Planning for Excellence: Insights from an International Review of Regulators’ Strategic Plans
- Jennifer Howard-Grenville, Stephanie Bertels, and Brooke Boren, What Regulators Need to Know About Organizational Culture
- Jennifer Nash and Daniel E. Walters, Public Engagement and Transparency in Regulation: A Field Guide to Regulatory Excellence
- Greg Paoli and Anne Wiles, Key Analytical Capabilities of a Best-in-Class Regulator
Keynote Remarks
- Dame Deirdre Hutton, Chair, UK Civil Aviation Authority, The Role of Stakeholder Relationships in Regulatory Excellence (Keynote Address, March 19, 2015)
Video Presentations
- Cary Coglianese, Opening Presentation at the Alberta Province-wide Dialogue, April 12, 2015
- Jim Ellis, Opening Presentation at the Alberta Province-wide Dialogue, April 13, 2015
Interim Convener’s Report
- Cary Coglianese, Listening and Learning: Toward a Framework of Regulatory Leadership
Other Project Papers
- Cary Coglianese, Defining and Assessing Regulatory Excellence
- Cary Coglianese, Rating Governmental Excellence
- Angus Corbett, Reflections on Regulatory Excellence
- Howard Kunreuther, What Makes a Regulator Excellent When Faced with Extreme Events?
RegBlog Essays
- RegBlog Series, The Search for Regulatory Excellence (July 27-30, 2015)
- Dame Deirdre Hutton, Chair, UK Civil Aviation Authority, The Role of Stakeholder Relationships in Regulatory Excellence (July 27, 2015)
- Alexandra Hamilton, How Can Regulation Reduce the Risks of Fracking? (May 4, 2015)
- Ryan Teitman, Professor Coglianese to Lead New Initiative on Regulatory Excellence (Nov. 13, 2014)
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Penn Program on Regulation
Based at Penn Law, the Penn Program on Regulation brings together thirty experts from across six schools at the University of Pennsylvania, a private, Ivy-League institution known as one of the world’s premier centers for teaching and research. PPR brings rigorous, balanced analysis from multiple disciplines to bear on important regulatory policy problems and alternative strategies for solving them, as well as on the processes of making and implementing regulation.
Alberta Energy Regulator
The Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) mandate is to ensure the safe, efficient, orderly, and environmentally responsible development of hydrocarbon resources over their entire life cycle. It is the single regulator of energy development in the province of Alberta, Canada — from application and exploration, to construction and development, to abandonment, reclamation, and remediation