Firm participation and regulatory compliance: A randomized control trial

OVERVIEW

The Participation and Regulatory Compliance Project will assess Vietnam’s current process for participation by firms in the drafting of new business regulations, testing whether this participation can improve labor rights and safety.

The study is an essential experiment on the effects of more aggressive, well-funded strategies for mobilizing business input and will have very real implications for Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) strategy and for Vietnamese public policy going forward.

The project will use a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to analyze downstream compliance with a technical regulation on chemical storage by five randomly assigned treatment groups. After the final regulation is promulgated, the team will monitor the firms in all five groups to test compliance with the final legislation. By selecting safety requirements for hazardous chemicals that are readily observable, the study aims to find clear evidence of whether participation led to downstream compliance and which of the three mechanisms is most responsible.