Comparative Analysis of Regulatory Systems

Comparisons of institutional contexts in developed and developing countries are among the top priorities of international organizations like the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD. A fruitful dialogue between comparative lawyers and other social scientists calls for an agreement on criteria which measure the quality of institutional choices. Drawing on cognitive science, this area of research starts from the idea that comparative institutional analysis should rely on the notion of decision costs. It should be possible to single out the factors affecting their level, the procedures which help to reduce them and the error rates associated with each public or private decision-maker.