The purpose of this Paper is to study the determinants of the concentration of ownership in a privatized, regulated firm. The discussion illustrates some aspects of the costs and benefits of different corporate systems. Privatized utilities are large firms with professional management: there is...

We develop a theoretical model of long-run investment decisions on capacity in the context of a liberalized electricity market. The sector's idiosyncrasies such as the uncertainty surrounding future supply and demand, as well as technological constraints, are explicitly modelled. The model is...

We study the regulation of a utility firm which is active in a competitive unregulated sector as well. If the firm jointly operates its activities in the two markets, it enjoys economies of scope, whose size is the firm’s private information and is unknown to the regulator and the rival firms....

This paper analyses the effects of universal service obligations, such as uniform pricing, coverage constraints and price caps, on markets newly opened to competition, e.g. broadband services. We show that the requirement of uniform pricing has strong repercussions on coverage decisions. Imposed...

The paper studies the impact of market integration on investment incentives in non-competitive industries. It distinguishes between investment in transportation and production cost-reducing technologies. Each domestic firm is controlled by a national regulator in a common market made of two...

The paper studies the impact of government budget constraint in a pure adverse selection problem of monopoly regulation. The government maximizes total surplus but incurs some cost of public funds à la Laffont and Tirole (1993). An alternative to regulation is proposed in which firms are free...

We analyze the impact of mandatory access on the infrastructure investments of two competing communications networks, and show that for low (high) access charges firms wait (preempt each other). Contrary to previous results, under preemption a higher access charge can delay first investment....

In this paper, we discuss the choice for build-operate-and-transfer (BOT) concessions when governments and managers do not share the same information regarding the operation characteristics of a facility. We show that larger shadow costs of public funds and larger information asymmetries entice...

When data on actual choices are not available, researchers studying preferences sometimes pose choice scenarios and ask respondents to state the actions they would choose if they were to face these scenarios. The data on stated choices are then used to estimate random utility models, as if they...

The EU faces challenges in reforming the Gas and Electricity Directives to implement the single market in electricity and gas. The Paper argues that there is unfinished business in the areas of regulation, restructuring, encouraging proper risk management through contracting, and designing...