Regulation & Governance published the article “Are regulatory agencies independent in practice? Evidence from board members in Spain” on April 2015. The article is based on an inedit dataset on the identities of regulators in Spain (1980-2010) collected with the support of a grant from the Catalan School of Public Administration. The link at the School contains the documentation and full report of the research project.

The research project was carried out at IBEI.

Citation

When citing the article, please use the following:

Fernández‐i‐Marín, X., Jordana, J., & Bianculli, A. C. (2016). Are regulatory agencies independent in practice? Evidence from board members in Spain. Regulation & Governance, 10(3), 230-247. doi:10.1111/rego.12084.

Original research project (EAPC 2010)

Anàlisi de les dimensions partidista i territorial en la independència de les agències reguladores (Analysis of the partisan and territorial dimensions in the independence of regulatory agencies)

Summary

Regulatory agencies respond to an objective of independence regarding the political power that gives them credibility with social agents. The real independence of the members that are part of the advice of the Spanish regulatory agencies regarding the parliamentary parties or majorities that nominated them for the position have not been systematically studied. The project focuses on this emptiness and also adds the territorial dimension, which takes into account not only the partisan membership of the members of the agencies’ councils, but also the impact that may have on the places of origin of its members in decisions that are territorialy diverse. The project is based on the analysis of the acts and voting behaviour of the board of the regulatory agencies in order to evaluate the independence of the members in two significant dimensions. The research is complemented by in-depth interviews with those responsible for the agencies to analyze the possible sources of problems related to the independence of the members of the boards vis-a-vis the politicians.

Funded by the Escola d’Administració Pública de Catalunya (Catalan School of Public Administration)

Researchers

• Xavier Fernández-i-Marín
• Jacint Jordana
• Andrea C. Bianculli