Opinion polls suggest Scotland will reject independence, opening the way to a review of economic governance in the United Kingdom, a complex quasi-federal, asymmetric system of administrations and parliaments, the result of ad hoc changes over decades. One party wants telecommunications...

The Scottish Government published proposals for the administration of an independent Scotland, its case for a vote in favour of independence in September 2014 and an outline of its manifesto in the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2016. Opinion polls continue to show that only about one...

The Scottish National Party (SNP) government in Scotland has published an outline of how it wishes economic and competition regulation to operate in the event that it is successful in persuading the residents of Scotland to vote in September 2014 for independence in March 2016. It envisages a...

If the plebiscite in Scotland, due in autumn 2014, results in its independence from the United Kingdom, it is expected to become a member state of the European Union (EU). One consequence of this is that Scotland would be required, by the acquis communitaire, to create a considerable number of...

The Smith Commission completed its work in short order, producing an agreement that would see significant further powers devolved to the Scottish government and parliament. Amongst the arrangements were some additional powers for the Scottish government concerning the work of the Office of...

Telecommunications regulation should be viewed as an attempt to solve the problem of financing large-scale public infrastructure over a sufficiently long period of time to pose significant and perhaps prohibitive amounts of risk. Investors are reluctant to commit capital to infrastructure if...

The Smith Commission is charged with the rapid development of proposals for increased devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament. One area very poorly covered in the past has been the interaction of devolved government with the regulatory state. While further powers will be devolved, there...

The economics of federalism is a broad discipline with more than five decades of experience. It may shed light on how regulatory jurisdiction is allocated in EU electricity and telecommunications markets. Specifically, this paper assesses the evolution of reform up to and including the third EU...

In December 2020, the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) was proposed. It was prepared by the European Commission (“EC”) following several years of work. The DMA attempts to improve “fairness” and contestability” in the digital sector. The DMA acknowledges that some companies designated...

This article starts by surveying the literature on economic federalism and relating it to network industries. Some new developments (which focus on the role of inter-jurisdictional externalities and multiple objectives) are then added and used to analyze regulatory arrangements in...