The volume and fragmentation of the regulatory framework matter for the study of business demography. They may imply that the market is divided, reducing the ability of companies to take advantage of economies of scale and may reduce firm size. This article has two objectives: it analyzes the results of a new database on regulation in Spain and explores the impacts of the complexity of the regulatory framework on business demography. The volume of new norms adopted in Spain has increased by four-fold since the end of the 70s, reaching 11,737 regulations in 2018. The results of our analysis indicate that the complexity of the regulatory framework, broken down at the local level, is negatively related to the total number of firms in Spain. The negative association is clearer in the case of limited liability companies (which are larger firms) than in individuals with business activity (which have a smaller size). The analysis in this article is relevant to the study of productivity in Spain.

监管框架的数量和分散性对企业人口统计学的研究至关重要。它们可能暗示着市场是分裂的，降低了公司利用规模经济的能力，并可能减小公司规模。本文有两个目标：分析西班牙新的法规数据库的结果，并探讨法规框架的复杂性对企业人口统计学的影响。自70年代末以来，西班牙采用的新规范数量增长了四倍，到2018年达到11,737条法规。我们的分析结果表明，在地方层面分解的法规框架的复杂性是负面的与西班牙的公司总数有关。对于有限责任公司（较大的公司）而言，负相关性要比从事商业活动的个人（较小的公司）中的负相关性更明显。本文中的分析与西班牙的生产率研究有关。