Measuring and Explaining regulatory Reform in the EU: A Time Series Analysis of Eight Sectors, 1984-2012

Over the last three decades, EU regulation of the internal market has become highly pervasive, affecting practically all the domains of European citizens’ lives. Many studies have focused on understanding the process and causes of regulatory reform. However, these have typically been small-scale or small-n studies, with no or limited attempts to analyse the more general sources of regulatory reform. In this paper, we focus on the determinants of stability and change in EU regulation. We develop an original dataset of 169 pieces of legislation (regulations, directives and decisions) across eight different sectors, and analyse the dynamics of regulatory reform in the EU. Using time series analysis of count data, we find evidence that the number of winning coalitions in the Council and the size of EU membership have a significant impact on regulatory reform in the EU. However, the political (left-right) composition of EU’s legislative bodies has no significant impact on the process of regulatory reform.