Abstract
Regulation has been identified as one area where Brexit may deliver economic benefits. Sections of business opinion have long criticised the EU for the negative impact of its regulations upon the business community, and therefore the chapter examines the potential for a shift towards national rather than supra-national regulation to deliver economic gains. Evidence is presented relating to the relative ranking of UK regulatory burdens, and that the vast majority of UK firms do not export to other EU member states and yet remain constrained by single market regulations. The chapter evaluates the evidence, produced by a handful of studies, which have sought to contrast the economic cost-benefit rations produced by national as opposed to EU regulations, before considering policy responses in the form of significant regulatory liberalisation (‘Singapore on Thames’), gains that might be made through repatriation of certain regulations and the significance of the choice facing UK negotiators, concerning whether to pursue regulatory divergence or concede EU demands for regulatory compliance (the so-called level playing field).
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Notes
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‘IoD calls on all parties to accept need for EU reform’, 28 September 2015, http://www.iod.com/influencing/press-office/press-releases/iod-calls-on-all-parties-to-accept-need-for-eu-reform.
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A database of these RIAs are available via: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia. If you would like to read more about the origin, design and application of RIAs, then you may wish to consider Dunlop and Radaelli (2016).
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Whyman, P.B., Petrescu, A.I. (2020). Regulation. In: The Economics of Brexit. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55948-9_5
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