Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze the epistemic foundations of RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types of knowledge to inferences about the future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model of argumentation, we situate deductive and inductive reasoning steps within a schema we call the impact argument. This approach helps us identify inherent uncertainties in RIAs, and their location in different types of reasoning. We illustrate the theoretical section with impact assessments of two recent legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. We argue that the concept of “evidence-based regulatory impact assessment” is misleading and should be based on the notion of “regulatory impact assessment as evidential reasoning,” which better recognizes its processual and argumentative nature.

中文翻译：

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监管影响评估的逻辑：从证据到证据推理

参与制定监管政策的机构促进基于证据的监管影响评估（RIA），以提高监管的可预测性并制定明智的政策。在这里，我们分析 RIA 的认知基础。我们将 RIA 定义为将各种类型的知识与对未来的推论联系起来的推理。借鉴斯蒂芬·图尔明的论证模型，我们将演绎和归纳推理步骤置于我们称为影响论证的模式中。这种方法帮助我们识别 RIA 中固有的不确定性，以及它们在不同类型推理中的位置。我们通过对欧盟委员会最近提出的两项立法提案的影响评估来说明理论部分。我们认为，“基于证据的监管影响评估”的概念具有误导性，应该基于“监管影响评估作为证据推理”的概念，这样可以更好地认识到其过程性和论证性。