Intra-EU Differences in Regulation-Caused Administrative Burden for Companies

The elaborates the methods for quantifying the administrative burden for companies that stems from mandatory government-related information requirements. The paper was written to support the introduction (under the Dutch EU presidency, 2004) by EU Member States of the co-called 'standard cost model' for assessing the costs of the administrative burden. The method is described and slightly adapted to make it more suitable for international comparisons. A systematic comparison is made for most of the present EU countries to provide one of the first available international estimates of administrative burdens for countries