Regulation and deregulation in industrial countries : some lessons for LDCs

The United States'experience with antitrust and with directive regulation in the rail, trucking, airline, and telephone sectors offers useful lessons for developing countries. The experience highlights the realities both of market failure and of the difficulties of implementing regulation to control it - and reveals that imperfect regulation may be no better than imperfect competition. Antitrust measures to regulate price fixing and to require approval for mergers above some threshold level of industrial concentration are straightforward to implement and have provided some gains in economic welfare. The regulation of price discrimination, restrictive vertical practices, and predatory pricing is administratively more difficult, and the potential gains are less clearly evident. In many situations, import competition can be an efficient alternative. Direct regulation of rail, trucking, airline, and telephone was frequently inefficient, the regulatory apparatus often lost sight of its original objectives, and the regulators were captured by the regulated. For rail and trucking regulation, the regulatory outcome probably was worse than it would have been under laissez-faire.Administrative&Regulatory Law,Economic Theory&Research,National Governance,Knowledge Economy,Environmental Economics&Policies

Boston Hospitality Review: Fall 2018 

Table of contents: Airbnb and the Hotel Industry: The Past, Present, and Future of Sales, Marketing, Branding, and Revenue Management By Makarand Mody and Monica Gomez -- Creating Community One Meal at a Time By Dana Searle -- Restaurant Delivery: Are the "ODP" the Industry's "OTA"? Part I & II By Christopher Muller -- My Head in the Clouds (Computing): A Case Study of a Restaurant Group Embracing Off-Site Technology By Tyler Titheringto

The limits of open acess as a regulatory yardstick in the regulation of utilities in Latin America

This paper contends that the identification of a pro-competitive agenda in the process of regulatory reform undertaken in many developing countries, particularly in the field of utilities regulation, ultimately rests on the vision held by the authority about the sources of market failures. Conventional Industrial Organization theory assumes that the exercise of market power by incumbent firms limits the access of potential competitive entrants, and therefore, government regulation should curb such power. However, the existence of market “power” is an inference from conventional “equilibrium” thinking on markets and competition, where such power is associated with the static conditions of markets, away from the efficient equilibrium epitomized by the Perfect Competition model. By logical inference, an alternative “market process” view that regards markets as entities subject to constant disequilibrium should lead to alternative normative conclusions. Under this alternative view, exploring the role of rules and institutions is essential for the analysis of “efficient” market outcomes. Such efficiency is related to the capacity of market participants to coordinate their productive activities, and complementary entrepreneurial synergies. This paper outlines an alternative network competition perspective, focused on the integration of complementary capabilities, as a regulatory yardstick. This view balances the rights of incumbent firms to exploit their rights, and the possibilities of third parties to integrate into the network concerned on a non-discriminatory basis, thereby preserving the investments of incumbents on a more equitable basis. It also explores the experience of selected Latin American countries in the development of this network competition approach.

Private Provision of Highways: Economic Issues

This paper reviews issues raised by the use of private firms to finance, build, and/or operate highways — issues including cost of capital, level and structure of tolls, and adaptability to unforeseen changes. The public sector’s apparent advantage in cost of capital is at least partly illusory due to differences in tax liability and to constraints on the supply of public capital. The evidence for lower costs of construction or operation by private firms is slim. Private firms are likely to promote more efficient pricing. Effective private road provision depends on well-structured franchise agreements that allow pricing flexibility, restrain market power, enforce a sound debt structure, promote transparency, and foster other social goals.Privatization; Road finance; Toll road; Road pricing

Issues and Options for Restructuring Electricity Supply Industries

The electricity supply industry is highly capital-intensive, whose success depends critically upon the management of its investment. In most developing countries investment is poorly managed, poorly maintained, and often inadequate. Inadequate regulation or political control lead to low prices that undermine the finance of investment and give poor incentives for management and operation. The paper argues that regulation must be carefully designed to provide efficient incentives and adequate guarantees to sustain investment and operations and only then will privatisation improve performance and benefit consumers. The paper discusses the evidence for these claims, the circumstances required for full unbundling and liberalisation to be successful, and those where the Single Buyer Model or continued, ideally reformed, state ownership, may be preferable, at least until conditions improve

Road taxes, road user charges and earmarking

The UK Road Fund was set up in 1921 and financed by earmarked taxes, but was unsuccessful as a form of road finance and abandoned in 1937. The paper examines why earmarking failed and what problems arise for replacing road taxes by hypothecated road charges. These charges would need to be regulated and could evolve into a more efficient system of road pricing. The paper claims that recent experiences with regulating capital-intensive network industries make road user charging and the commercialisation of the public highway both feasible and desirable, but that recent government proposals for local earmarked taxes are inadequate.

Price Regulation in Telecommunications Sector and Its Implications

Telecommunication facility has been provided in most countries as a user pay public service managed, typically, through the Post, Telegraph and Telephone departments or by some government-owned monopoly. The tradition has been to regard it as a natural monopoly to be supplied by the public sector.1 This perception has changed. Telecommunication is now increasingly recognised as a prime mover of the modern day economy. It is opening to participation by the private sector. The economic benefits of telecommunications are enormous, both as a growth industry in its own right and in terms of its impact on economic development. It has a significant social role in transforming how people communicate, become informed or do business. Additionally, it is also environment-friendly because it disseminates information without shifting goods or people. The practice now in vogue is to establish a regulatory agency with a high degree of independence from both operator and government. The regulator’s task is to implement government policy, ensure performance accountability by the operators and other players in respect of economic and social policy objectives, resolve disputes between competitors, monitor changing industry conditions and advise government on developments bearing on policy. The regulatory agency acts as a buffer between telecom operators and government, helping to ensure the separation of functions. Of late governments have increasingly been pursuing the policy of privatisation, liberalisation and de-regulation of telecommunication services. Pakistan has also made an advance in this direction with the promulgation of the Pakistan Telecommunications (Reorganisation) Act 1996. The main objectives are the promotion of rapid development, modernisation and diversification of telecommunication services and protection of consumer interest. In this paper an attempt has been made to answer the question as to why there is need to regulate telecommunication. Determining reasonable prices for a monopoly public service is an important area in telecom sector.