We study the impact on consumers of privatization and liberalization in the telecommunication sector for 15 EU Countries. Policy reforms are summarized by the OECD regulatory indicators (REGREF), that considers the extent of privatization, vertical disintegration, and market entry. After...

This paper proposes three propositions for the future of European industrial policy, based on a discussion of the Report 'An Agenda for a Growing Europe' (Sapir at al, 2004). My first proposition is that the growth gap between Us and Eu indeed exists, it is not a statistical artefact, in spite...

In this paper we examine the emergence over the last two decades in the EU of a dominant policy paradigm on the reform of network industries. We consider the broad recommendations by the OECD and the European Commission, and the Directives adopted by the European Union on the reform of some...

The paper discusses possible interpretations of the fall of the public enterprise in the economic ideology of the European left-wing parties. The first section rejects the claim that a technological shift has weakened the case for the nationalization of natural monopolies. Economies of scale in...

La legge 17 Maggio n. 144 del 1999 richiedeva a tutte le amministrazioni centrali e regionali in Italia di dotarsi di un nucleo di valutazione degli investimenti pubblici a supporto dell'attività di programmazione "con la finalità di migliorare e... dare maggiore qualità ed efficienza al...

The research question addressed by this paper is a simple one: are European consumers happy with the services provided by the utilities after two decades of reforms? We focus on electricity, gas, water, telephone in the EU 15 Member States. The variables we analyse are consumers’ satisfaction...

While most economists usually believe that privatization policy is socially beneficial, it faces increasing opposition in several countries. In this paper we wish to discover the ingredients in a recipe for privatization discontent. To do so we focus on Latin America, where there is wide...

The paper shows that privatisation can contribute to the decrease of net public debt, but at the same time can decrease the Public Sector Net Worth. This is defined as the difference between public sector assets and liabilities. The UK in the 1980s and 1990s is an example of parallelism between...

The King-Fullerton (1984) approach to the measurement of effective marginal rates of taxation on capital income has been applied extensively. The empirical literature confirms that the dispersion of effective tax rates, both within each country and among countries, is wide. However no test has...

The purpose of the paper is to analyse some results of cost-benefit analysis in a sample of ISPA (Structural Instrument for pre-accession countries) projects. The focus is particularly on the variability of financial and economic rates of return and how to integrate this information in the EU...