The decision to create independent regulatory agencies as a tool to cope with the development of capitalism has been widely followed by decisionmakers from all over the globe. The paper aims to answer whether the diffusion of this kind of institutions is a process explained by regional dynamics (regionalization) or by international dynamics (globalization). By regionalization it us understood that countries have followed the patterns of regional leaders and by globalization that countries have followed a logic based on following countries outside their region.

The covariates include complexity of the economy (economic dimension), size of the government (governmental dimension) and democratic institutions (institutional dimension). More specifically, the paper compares models assuming that those covariates have an effect on an international field and models assuming that the covariates have an effect at regional level. The performance and implications of the models are then compared to understand under what circumstances diffusion follows a regional or a global logic.

The data used to test the hypothesis comes from a database that includes the OECD and Latin American countries, and 16 sectors of public intervention from financial, social, utilities and competition areas. Bayesian data analysis is used to estimate the parameters of interest. It allows the researcher to design more flexible models (hierarchical models), present the results in a more natural way, improve the clarity of the interpretation and avoid artificial assumptions in comparative politics.