Autore: Matteucci, Nicola
Titolo: The State and Prospects of Regulation: A Long Term Perspective on Italy and Beyond
Periodico: L'industria
Anno: 2020 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 479 - Pagina finale: 508

Adopting a long term perspective helps to evaluate the rationale, outcomes, and dilemmasof the regulation evolution and its reforms. After having been ignited by market liberalisationsand privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s, regulation reforms impacted on utilitiesdifferently. Some sectors (like telecoms) appear to have reaped the highest benefits from incentive-based regulation; others (such as electricity), for a variety of reasons, did not completelyabandon rate-of-return (ror) or featured hybrid tools. While the price cap stands as theregulatory champion, its many variants prevent sound experimental assessments; moreover, sofar it has not been able to entirely solve quality underinvestment. Consequently, a new generationof output-based regulation is being developed: it encompasses a wider menu of policytargets. Telecoms, which remain the front-runner of future trends, experiment new regulatorymodels for stimulating infrastructure-based competition, and guaranteeing universal service.Furthermore, the role of privatisations remains contentious and appears generally overstated.The regulatory agenda is now concerned with the solution of Government failures, and theharmonisation between regulation and industrial policy. The resurgence of the latter in the euis unveiled by a «vibrant» State aid policy, that targets sectors (utilities) that are nodes of systemicinterdependence. At the same time, telecoms markets uncover original policy dilemmasat the intersection of antitrust and regulation. While industrial eras and regulatory paradigmsseem to chase one another, new insights on how to better regulate monopolistic markets comefrom «nudges» and behavioural theories of regulation. Concerning the research agenda, casesof «regulatory exuberance» may warrant scrutiny, while a deeper investigation of the limits ofindependent authorities is needed.




SICI: 0019-7416(2020)3<479:TSAPOR>2.0.ZU;2-W
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1430/98515
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1430/98515

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