Appointment Delay and the Policy Environment of the National Transportation Safety Board, Administration and Society • Planning Commission (2008) ‘Approach paper to Regulation of Infrastructure’, Government of India • Quast T (2010) ‘Do Elected Public Uti

Appointments to regulatory agencies are rarely the subject of empirical analysis, and when they are scrutinized, the focus is institutional factors. Instead, the authors examine the policy environment to determine if external factors influence the appointment process. To illustrate this, accident rates are analyzed to determine their effect on appointment duration at the Na-tional Transportation Safety Board. The most important explanatory variable for delay is a statutorily required cross-party nomination—an institutional factor. However, the policy en-vironment is also important: A 1 standard deviation increase in the accident rate leads to a 30 % increase in vacancy duration for the agency