As part of the Single Market Program the European Commission commanded the liberalization and regulatory harmonization of utilities, transport and telecommunication services. This paper investigates whether and how this process affected the productivity of European network firms. Exploiting the...

In this paper, we describe the development and current status of anti-manipulation rules as they apply to wholesale electricity and natural gas markets in the United States and the European Union, including the institutions that are responsible for overseeing these rules. We then compare and...

This paper analyses the effects of banning pricing policies that lead to margin squeezes when the upstream good is imperfectly regulated. The analysis relies on a modelling with a vertically integrated upstream monopolist that faces competition by an unintegrated downstream competitor. It shows...

This paper aims at highlighting the Commission's approach towards the relation between sector specific regulation and general competition law, especially concerning energy markets and the road to Internal Market objective.We firstly present Trinko case, in order to focus on two crucial and...

The cost to merchants of taking payment on debit cards declined by more than $7 billion annually as a result of the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, while the effective cost to issuers of providing debit card services to consumers...

Water is an exhaustible natural resource. Access to clean, safe and affordable water must be managed nowadays not only to avoid any unnecessary use of water, but also allow for continuous supply of such an important factor of public well-being. In recent years, water-related activities acquired...

Until 2004, Federal Communications Commission regulations required that incumbent local telephone companies must lease to competitors the entire platform of network elements necessary to provide local phone service. In December 2004, the FCC decided to phase out the unbundled network element...

Since airlines were deregulated, shareholders, management and workers, already well organized, have suffered severe, sometimes catastrophic losses, while the benefits have been spread among unorganized consumers and the investors and managers of new entrant airlines, which themselves have had a...

The federal regulation and state enterprise (“FRASE”) index ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to how federal regulations affect each state's economy. Over the past 80 years, the federal government has increasingly relied on regulations as its primary legal output....