Appraising Policy: A Taxonomy of Ex Ante Impact Assessments

In the pursuit of better policy, many nations have turned to Impact Assessments as a potential solution. However, in order to make Impact Assessments as effective and impactful as possible, governments must think critically about which body should write Impact Assessments and what should go into these documents. In this Paper, I survey different Impact Assessment structures and the various government bodies formed to draft or review them. After completing this survey, I conclude that presidential and parliamentary systems should form their Impact Assessment offices differently in order to complement their differing governmental structures. While presidential systems would be best served by the sponsoring agency completing Regulatory Impact Assessments and an internal legislature office completing Legislative Impact Assessments, parliamentary systems should seek to establish an independent office dedicated entirely to creating Impact Assessments