The World of Regulatory Agencies: Institutional Varieties and Administrative Traditions

Abstract

The paper introduces a dataset of de jure institutional characteristics of regulatory agencies in more than 100 countries and 16 sectors. By doing so it discusses up to which degree countries with different administrative traditions have shaped the incorporation of such institutions into their own administrative culture. The paper shows that there are differences in the role that society plays in the agencies, in their political autonomy and in their bureaucratic autonomy by administrative tradition.

Keywords: regulatory agencies, administrative traditions, role of society, political autonomy, bureaucratic autonomy, independence, agencification, Bayesian comparison of means