EU Regulation Evaluation
Evidence-based analysis of EU regulations across 27 member states
In February 2025, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for a systematic evaluation of EU regulations, arguing that excessive regulatory burden is holding back European competitiveness. This is the right instinct — but deregulation without evidence is just ideology with extra steps. We are building a rigorous, data-driven research program to evaluate the actual causal effects of major EU regulations: which ones work, which ones impose costs that exceed their benefits, and which ones need reform.
The EU's multi-level governance structure — 27 member states transposing directives at different times — creates uniquely powerful natural experiments. When Germany transposes a directive in 2008 and France in 2010, we can use that staggered timing to estimate causal effects with difference-in-differences designs. We combine transposition data from EUR-Lex with regional economic outcomes from Eurostat (1,400+ NUTS regions), monetary data from the ECB Statistical Data Warehouse, and regulatory indices from the OECD.
41 papers completed so far
Carbon & Climate
10 papersEU Emissions Trading System (ETS), Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), Effort Sharing Regulation, Renewable Energy Directive, and Green Deal industrial policy. The ETS phases create sector-level treatment variation ideal for difference-in-differences designs across covered and uncovered industries.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #111 | |
| #220 | |
| #429 |
Digital Regulation
3 papersGeneral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Digital Markets Act (DMA), Digital Services Act (DSA), AI Act, and ePrivacy rules. GDPR's staggered enforcement across member states and firm-size thresholds (250 employees) provide clean identification for studying compliance costs and innovation effects.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #634 | |
| #755 | |
| #919 |
Trade & Single Market
7 papersServices Directive, Goods Package, Mutual Recognition, and free movement provisions. The Services Directive (2006/123/EC) was transposed between 2006 and 2012 across member states — this staggered implementation is one of the cleanest natural experiments in EU policy evaluation.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #111 | |
| #404 | |
| #429 |
Labor & Mobility
4 papersPosted Workers Directive, Working Time Directive, Schengen area rules, and EU labor market coordination. Schengen accession dates and posted worker rule changes create border-discontinuity designs across neighboring regions.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #300 | |
| #376 | |
| #385 |
Financial Regulation
3 papersMiFID II, Banking Union, Capital Requirements Directive, Solvency II, and Anti-Money Laundering directives. Eurozone membership versus non-Eurozone EU states provides a natural control group for monetary policy transmission studies.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #498 | |
| #686 | |
| #764 |
Industrial & Competition Policy
7 papersREACH (chemicals regulation), State Aid rules, EU Merger Control, and standardization policy. REACH's substance-level registration deadlines create a staggered treatment across chemical sectors, enabling event-study designs for industry productivity effects.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #111 | |
| #220 | |
| #404 |
Agriculture & Regional Policy
2 papersCommon Agricultural Policy (CAP), Cohesion Policy, Structural Funds, and rural development programs. NUTS2-level variation in Structural Fund allocations and CAP reform phases provide geographic variation for evaluating regional convergence effects.
Other EU Policy
12 papersCross-cutting EU regulations and directives not captured by the categories above, including consumer protection, environmental regulation beyond climate, transport policy, and health and safety standards.
| Rank | Paper |
|---|---|
| #158 | |
| #281 | |
| #441 |