In this paper we compare the properties in terms of rent extraction of Hotelling spatial competition and monopoly franchises using Dutch first price auctions, two of the most widely used tools to regulate public service provision. In a framework where the regulator can imperfectly observe costs,...

Health care provision in the public sector is increasingly oriented towards a reduction of vertical integration through fairly heterogeneous methods as concerns the contractual rules and the actors that are allowed to compete. In this paper we model the choice of a benevolent regulator that...

This article examines the resource allocation process in the internal market for health care and argue that the observed allocation is the result of the maximisation procedure of different agents, whose behaviour might not be fully detected by the system and whose preferences might not even...

The process of privatisation of health care has followed different patterns and some health care systems have preferred to create a mixed market where public organisations compete alongside private ones. The evidence on their performance is mixed. In this article we argue that public hospitals...

The traditional fiscal federalism theory shows that the devolution of functions for the supply of local public goods may increase welfare. However, most services offered at local level are impure local public goods with spillovers. These goods have specific characteristics that may prevent...