Information and communication technologies in Germany : Is there a remaining role for sector-specific regulation?

In order to analyze the remaining role for sector-specific regulation the focus of this paper is on those elements of the Internet periphery and Internet service provision, which are strongly based on telecommunications, in particular Internet access and Internet backbone. Section 2 deals with the role of telecommunications for the Internet, differentiating between local network access and long distance network capacity. In section 3 the new regulatory arrangements for communications services within Europe, with particular emphasis on Germany, are explained. In order to analyze the future role of sector-specific regulation from a normative point of view, in section 4 the network economic concept of a disaggregated regulatory approach is provided. Section 5 deals with phasing-out potentials for sector-specific regulation due to increasing competition within the local loop. In section 6 the role of technology-neutral regulation is considered, which implies that in an environment of competing network infrastructures sector- specific regulation should not be extended, but removed. Finally, section 7 explains the role of competition in the markets for backbone interconnectivity. --

Review of Economic Theories of Regulation

This paper reviews the economic theories of regulation. It discusses the public and private interest theories of regulation, as the criticisms that have been leveled at them. The extent to which these theories are also able to account for privatization and deregulation is evaluated and policies involving re-regulation are discussed. The paper thus reviews rate of return regulation, price-cap regulation, yardstick regulation, interconnection and access regulation, and franchising or bidding processes. The primary aim of those instruments is to improve the operating efficiency of the regulated firms. Huge investments will be needed in the regulated network sectors. The question is brought up if regulatory instruments and institutions primarily designed to improve operating efficiency are equally well-placed to promote the necessary investments and to balance the resulting conflicting interests between for example consumers and investors.Regulation, Deregulation, Public Interest Theories, Private Interest Theories, Interest Groups, Public Choice, Market Failures, Price-cap Regulation, Rate of Return Regulation, Yardstick Competition, Franchise Bidding, Access Regulation.

Open Layered Networks: the Growing Importance of Market Coordination

Based upon the Internet perspective, this paper will attempt to clarify and revise several ideas about the separation between infrastructure facilities and service offerings in digital communications networks. The key notions that we will focus on in this paper are: i) the bearer service as a technology-independent interface which exports blind network functionality to applications development; ii) the organizational consequences associated with the emergence of a sustainable market of bearer service: a clear movement at the level of industrial structure from traditional hierarchies to more market coordination

Sustaining a Vertically Disintegrated Network through a Bearer Service Market

Based upon the Internet perspective, this chapter will attempt to clarify and revise several ideas about the separation between infrastructure facilities and service offerings in digital communications networks. The key notions that we will focus on in this paper are: i) the bearer service as a technology-independent interface which exports blind network functionality to applications development; ii) the sustainability of an independent market for bearer service and the organizational consequences associated with such a market

Governance-technology co-evolution and misalignment in the electricity industry

This paper explores some reasons why the alignment between governance and technology in infrastructures may be unstable or not easy to achieve. Focusing on the electricity industry, we claim that the decentralization of governance – an essential step towards a decentralized technical coordination - may be hampered by if deregulation magnifies behavioural uncertainties and asset specificities; and that in a technically decentralized system, political demand for centralized coordination may arise if the players are able to collude and lobby, and if such practices lead to higher electricity rates and lower efficiency. Our claims are supported by insights coming from approaches as diverse as transaction cost economics, the competence-based view of the firm, and political economy.Governance; Technology; Coherence; Competence; Transaction costs; Regulation.

From techno-scientific grammar to organizational syntax. New production insights on the nature of the firm

The paper aims at providing the conceptual building blocks of a theory of the firm which addresses its "ontological questions" (existence,boundaries and organization) by placing production at its core. We draw on engineering for a more accurate description of the production process itself, highlighting its inner complexity and potentially chaotic nature, and on computational linguistics for a production-based account of the nature of economic agents and of the mechanisms through which they build ordered production sets. In so doing, we give a "more appropriate" production basis to the crucial issues of how firm's boundaries are set, how its organisational structure is defined, and how it changes over time. In particular, we show how economic agents select some tasks to be performed internally, while leaving some other to external suppliers, on the basis of criteria based on both the different degrees of internal congruence of the tasks to be performed (i.e. the internal environment), and on the outer relationships carried out with other agents (i.e. the external environment)