An Independent Regulatory Authority is a publicly identified official bureau having the regulatory responsibility of a market and being independent from i) the agents operating in that market, ii) other interested parties such as industrial pressure groups and iii) political actors like ministers. In particular, an Independent Regulatory Authority can be represented as a decentralised mode of government designed to check and balance the powers of ministries and interest groups. We can find in this depiction a European theoretical root: the Ordo-Liberal thought. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize such root in the evaluation of the performance of Independent Regulatory Authorities.
Keywords: Autorità di regolazione
Jel Code: H11, H83