Medicare’s prescription drug benefit (Part D) has been its largest expansion of benefits since 1965. Since the implementation of Part D, many regulatory proposals have been advanced in order to improve this government-created market. Among the most debated are proposals to limit the number of...

We study optimal regulation of a monopolist when intrinsic efficiency (intrinsic cost) and empire-building tendency (marginal utility of output) are private information but actual cost (difference between intrinsic cost and effort level) is observable. This is a problem of multidimensional...

In this paper we consider the problem of financing infrastructure when the regulator faces a budget constraint. The optimal budget-constrained mechanism satisfies four properties. The first property is bunching at the top, that is the more efficient firms produce the same quantity irrespective...

We revisit the choice of product differentiation by competing firms in the Hotelling model, under the assumption that firms are vertically separated, and that retailers choose products’ characteristics. We show that retailers with private information about their marginal costs choose to...

This paper offers a review and discussion of the evidence concerning the underpricing and long run performance of British PIPOs (Privatisation Initial Public Offerings) between 1977-1996, i.e. from the first privatisation under a Labour Government (British Petroleum), until the last ones by a...

The for-profit hospital is in the minority numerically in all developed countries. Although the for-profits' market share has been quite stable for decades, for-profit chains have grown in share and influence in the United States. By contrast, for-profit chains have made few inroads in other...

Many of the attributes that make a good "socially responsible" are credence attributes that cannot be learned by consumers either through search or experience. Consumers aggregate information about them from several channels (media, advertisement, NGOs, etc.). Since these sources may send...

A partire dalle novità normative introdotte dalla Legge Finanziaria 2002, si è registrata nel nostro Paese un’accelerazione dei processi di privatizzazione dei servizi pubblici locali (SPL), con più o meno radicali mutamenti nei modelli di governance e negli assetti proprietari delle...

Concerns on the clustering of retail industries and professional services in main streets had traditionally been the public interest rationale for supporting distance regulations. Although many geographic restrictions have been suppressed, deregulation has hinged mostly upon the theory results...

The paper investigates the organization of the Italian water sector in the light of the reforms of public utilities. The aim is to examine the degree of implementation of the water sector reform (the so-called Galli Law of 1994) and assess the performance of operators through a study of their...