The Italian water sector has undergone profound change since 2006, when a revised governance framework and new tariff models became law; further innovations were introduced after a national referendum in June 2011. This paper discusses the process of tariff setting in Italy in the light of...

There are no automatic links between the functional advantages and pressures associated with delegation to independent agencies for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and their emergence in national regulatory spaces. We argue that the rise of these organizations is mediated by contextual...

An adversarial game is used to model a firm's intrinsic and exerted influence over a regulator. Data from the World Business Environment Survey provide strong evidence in support of model hypotheses across a wide range of government agents, countries, and regulatory areas. Of particular...

A waste-to-energy firm that recycles organic waste with energy recovery performs two environmentally beneficial functions: it diverts waste from landfills and it produces renewable energy. At the same time, the waste-to-energy firm serves and collects revenue from two types of customers: waste...

The spectacular failure of the 150-year old investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15th, 2008 was a major turning point in the global financial crisis that broke out in the summer 2007. Through the use of stock market data and Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads, this paper examines the...

The production of desirable (good) outputs is frequently accompanied by unintended production of undesirable (bad) outputs. If two or more of these undesirable outputs are produced as byproducts, one may ask: ‘Which bad is worst?’ By worst we mean which bad inhibits the production of...

The paper deals with the trends in the world and Russian economies towards development of a new post-crisis system, including technological and structural transformation. Three main scenarios of Russian economic development (conservative, innovation and acceleration) are discussed basing on...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may grant market-based rates to oil pipelines in the U.S. upon a showing that they lack market power. The Commission defines market power as the ability to profitably increase price above the competitive level for a significant period. Because comparing...