Measuring and Managing the Costs of Red Tape: A Review of Recent Policy Developments

Over the last few years, red tape has come to be identifiedas an important policy area, and there has been rapid and relativelywidespread adoption—in one form or another—of aDutch-developed set of reforms aimed at significantly reducingthe costs of compliance with government-imposed obligationsto provide information (which have come to be referred to as‘administrative burdens’). This paper begins byexamining the characteristics of the policy problems that thesereforms are intended to address, and highlighting some of thechallenges that the reforms can be expected to face. The Dutch-developedapproach, and the UK adaptation of it, are then described, andspecific ways in which the reforms have sought to influenceinformation and incentive conditions—so as to generatereductions in administrative burdens—are assessed. Footnotes ¹ E-mail address: tim.keyworth{at}rpieurope.org