55,603 research outputs found
Toc ânâ Roll: Bargaining, Service Quality and Specificity in the UK Railway Network
The paper studies the regulatory design in an industry where the regulated downstream provider of services to final consumers purchases the necessary inputs from an upstream supplier. The model is closely inspired by the UK regulatory mechanism for the railway network. Its philosophy is one of vertical separation between ownership and operation of the rolling stock: the Train Operating Company (TOC) leases from a ROlling Stock COmpany (ROSCO) the trains it uses in its franchise. This, we show, increases the flexibility and competitiveness of the network. On the other hand, it also reduces the specificity of the rolling stock, thus increasing the cost of running the service, and the TOCâs incentive to exert quality enhancing effort, thus reducing the utility of the final users. Our simple model shows that the UK regime of separation may in fact be preferable from a welfare viewpoint.Network regulation; Railways; Incomplete contracts; Relation specific investment
Open-Access Issues in the Chilean Telecommunications and Electricity Sectors
Este trabajo analiza la crisis elĂ©ctrica de 1998-1999. Su principal conclusiĂłn es que el diagnĂłstico habitual que sostiene que ocurriĂł porque las empresas no invirtieron y el regulador no tenĂa atribuciones, es equivocado. A pesar de la peor sequĂa del siglo y de la falla de la central Nehuenco, los cortes de energĂa y el dĂ©ficit agregado de 450 GWh se podrĂan haber evitado si el agua embalsada se hubiese manejado recientemente, o bien los reguladores hubiesen usado sus atribuciones para hacer funcionar el sistema de precios, o si el ejecutivo no hubiese temido afectar su imagen decretando racionamiento apenas las condiciones lo exigieran. Argumentamos que la variabilidad hidrolĂłgica a la que estĂĄ sujeta Chile central hace inevitable las reducciones de consumo en años muy secos. Las crisis ocurren porque el sistema de precios es inflexible e inadecuado para acomodarlas sin cortes de energĂa; ante una escasez tanto usuarios como empresas enfrentan precios muy por debajo del costo de oportunidad de la energĂa. Esto, ademĂĄs, introduce un problema de moral hazard que incentiva el uso ineficiente del agua embalsada y hace mĂĄs probable que ocurra una escasez. Es equivocado pensar que las crisis se evitarĂan dĂĄndole mĂĄs atribuciones discrecionales al regulador. Varios episodios muestran que no usĂł las atribuciones que tenĂa. Al ejecutivo le incomoda zanjar conflictos entre privados porque sus intervenciones tienen consecuencias patrimoniales que lo dejan vulnerable a las crĂticas de quienes se sienten perjudicados. Por ello se debe liberar al regulador de la obligaciĂłn de zanjar conflictos entre privados. Esto requiere liberalizar la regulaciĂłn.
When good intentions are not enough: sequential entry and competition in the Turkish mobile industry
A decade into the liberalization of the Turkish mobile industry, the sector remains one of the most concentrated in Europe. In this paper we analyze the links between the regulatory environment and competitive outcomes in the Turkish context. We argue that seven years of duopoly incumbency resulted in a significant first-mover advantage. We then focus on the role of the regulatory tools that could potentially restrain the incumbent operatorsâ first-mover advantage and stimulate competition: national roaming, interconnection regulation, and number portability
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.
Universal service obligations in utility concession contracts and the needs of the poor in Argentina's privatization
The authors summarize the main lessons emerging from Argentina's experience, including universal service obligations in concession contracts. They discuss free-riding risks, moral hazard problems, and other issues that arise when social concerns are delegated to private operators. After reporting on Argentina's experience, the authors suggest some guidelines: 1) Anticipate interjurisdictional externalities. Users'mobility makes targeting service obligations difficult. 2) Minimize the risks imposed by elusive demand. In providing new services, a gradual policy may work better than a"shock". 3) Realize that unemployment leads to delinquency and lower expected tariffs. Elasticity of fixed and usage charges is important. 4) Deal with the fact that the poor have limited access to credit. Ultimately, plans that included credit for the payment of infrastructure charges were not that successful. 5) Coordinate regulatory, employment, and social policy. One successful plan to provide universal service involved employing workers from poor families in infrastructure extension works. 6) Beware of the latent opportunism of users who benefit from special programs. Special treatment of a sector may encourage free-riding (for example, pensioners overused the telephone until a limit was placed on the number of subsidized phone calls they could make). 7) Fixed allocations for payment of services do not ensure that universal service obligations will be met. How do you deal with the problem that many pensioners do not pay their bills? 8) anticipate that operators will have more information than regulators do. If companies exaggerate supply costs in remote areas, direct interaction with poor users there may lead to the selection of more cost-effective technologies. 9)"Tailored"programs are often much more effective than standardized programs. They are clearly more expensive but, when demand-driven, are also more effective.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Enterprise Development&Reform,Decentralization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Governance Indicators,Health Economics&Finance,Consumption,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research
Priorities, policies and (time)scales : the delivery of emissions reductions in the UK transport sector
Peer reviewedPreprin
Dependable Distributed Computing for the International Telecommunication Union Regional Radio Conference RRC06
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Regional Radio Conference
(RRC06) established in 2006 a new frequency plan for the introduction of
digital broadcasting in European, African, Arab, CIS countries and Iran. The
preparation of the plan involved complex calculations under short deadline and
required dependable and efficient computing capability. The ITU designed and
deployed in-situ a dedicated PC farm, in parallel to the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) which provided and supported a system based on the
EGEE Grid. The planning cycle at the RRC06 required a periodic execution in the
order of 200,000 short jobs, using several hundreds of CPU hours, in a period
of less than 12 hours. The nature of the problem required dynamic
workload-balancing and low-latency access to the computing resources. We
present the strategy and key technical choices that delivered a reliable
service to the RRC06
- âŠ