Graduate School of Public Policy

Expected dates of the program

1.      May 13-14, 2021

Program overview

Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is both a document and a decision process for supporting decision makers on whether and how to regulate in order to achieve public policy goals. RIA helps to improve the design of regulations by assisting policy makers in identifying the most efficient and effective solution to address a policy problem. RIA examines evidence for the costs and benefits of regulation and non-regulatory alternatives of achieving policy goals in order to identify the approach that is likely to deliver the greatest net benefit to society. RIA can assist in promoting policy coherence by pointing to the trade-offs inherent in regulatory proposals, and identifying who is likely to benefit from a regulation and who will bear the costs. RIA can also improve the use of evidence in policy making and help avoid regulatory failure arising from regulating when there is no case for doing so, or failing to regulate when regulation is needed. Finally, RIA documents all of the evidence and increases accountability of policy decisions.

The purpose of this workshop (3 lectures over 1 day) is to train officials from government agencies and other experts involved in the policy-making process on the elaboration and evaluation of RIA.

Day 1 (AM)

Description

Lecture 1: Introduction to RIA in the context of regulatory policy and governance

·         An introduction to the approaches used in regulatory impact assessments, including the overall framework, the methods used to estimate costs and benefits, and the presentation of the results.

Lecture 2: Regulatory Benefit‐Cost Analysis

·         In this lecture, benefit-cost analysis is applied to examine proposed regulations. Benefit-cost analysis is used around the world to assess regulatory impacts. This lecture provides an introduction to the approaches used in these analyses, including the overall framework, the methods used to estimate costs and benefits, and the presentation of the results. The lecture will include an actual case study of the use of benefit-cost analysis.  Finally, the lecture will conclude with an interactive session that ties the elements of regulatory benefit-cost analysis together. 

Day 1 (PM)

Description

Lecture 3: Regulatory Consultation

·         The objective of the lecture is to provide practical information and learning through case studies in applying regulatory consultation. Topics covered will include the following: principles and techniques for regulatory consultation, as well as analysis, discussion and implementation in real situations; pre-consultation; and consultation techniques.

Facilitators

Peter Howie, Associate Professor

Peter Howie has joined the Graduate School of Public Policy as an Associate Professor of Economics in 2012. 

Prior to accepting his present position, Dr. Howie taught for seven years at Mount Royal University, which is located in Calgary, Canada.  In addition, Peter taught for two years at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research and one year at the University of Montana.  He has also taught in the Master’s of Mineral Economics program at the Western Australian School of Mines at Curtin University of Technology and worked in the private sector as a project geologist.
Peter holds a B.Sc. degree from the University of British Columbia, an M.B.A. from McGill University, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Mineral Economics from the Colorado School of Mines.
Peter’s research interests include energy and development issues in both developed and transition economies. The latter research uses Kazakhstan as a case study. Peter has published several articles including “An Application of a Stated Preference Method to Value Urban Amenities,” “Regional Development in Kazakhstan,” “Electricity Demand in Kazakhstan,” and “Mineral industry demand: The theory in practice.” Dr. Howie received a grant from the Economics Education and Research Consortium, based in Moscow, for his research on “Electricity Demand in Kazakhstan” and has presented his research findings at international conferences in Russia, the Ukraine, USA, and Canada.