Airport economic regulation and capital investment: lessons from the United Kingdom experience

ICCSAI´s annual Fact Book is a bianually updated and synthetic reference document on competition in the air transport industry of Europe. Special attention is given to the Italian context, although these data are discussed from an international perspective. This work is addressed to all players in the air transport industry. It presents detailed information on demand, supply, industry structure, and regulation policies. Moreover, we draw broad conclusions from these data and identify key questions for future research. We endeavor to approach topics debated in the literature from the standpoint of those who work in the air transport industry as operators or policy makers

Crisis and Punishment? Explaining Politicians’ Appetite for Retribution in Post-Crisis Europe

This paper investigates the politics of holding bank executives accountable for banking crises. The aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis was characterized by a significant variation in the extent to which European countries endorsed this type of retributive justice. In particular, while some countries established special prosecutorial bodies and took steps to facilitate prosecutions, others seemed to consider the crisis “business as usual” and relied on the existing investigative and prosecutorial mechanisms to seek out wrongdoing. We explore the experiences of two European countries, Iceland and Cyprus. We argue that the way a financial crisis unfolds plays a significant role in shaping the appetite of politicians for promoting an agenda of retributive justice. With a banking collapse, politicians will be most proactive, as voters’ demand for justice is high and the risks for the banking industry are minimal. With a severe yet negotiated crisis following a bailout/bail-in, politicians are more reluctant to endorse policies that may risk the recovery of the fragile

Convergence of nonlocal geometric flows to anisotropic mean curvature motion

We consider nonlocal curvature functionals associated with positive interaction kernels, and we show that local anisotropic mean curvature functionals can be retrieved in a blow-up limit from them. As a consequence, we prove that the viscosity solutions to the rescaled nonlocal geometric flows locally uniformly converge to the viscosity solution to the anisotropic mean curvature motion. The result is achieved by combining a compactness argument and a set-theoretic approach related to the theory of De Giorgi's barriers for evolution equations.Comment: 19 page

Beyond financial repression and regulatory capture: the recomposition of European financial ecosystems after the crisis. LEQS Paper No. 147/2019 September 2019

The financial crisis has radically changed the political economy of the European financial system. The evolution of relations between European states and their respective financial systems has given rise to two competing narratives. On the one hand, government agencies are often described as being at the mercy of the financial sector, regularly hijacking political, regulatory and supervisory processes. This trend is often referred to as "regulatory capture" and would explain the "soft touch" regulation and bank bailout. On the other hand, governments are portrayed as subverting markets and abusing the financial system for their benefit, mainly to obtain better financing conditions and allocate credit to the economy on preferential terms, a trend called "financial repression" that is considered corrosive to the proper functioning of free markets and a source of capital misallocation. This paper takes a critical look at this debate and argues that the relationship between governments and financial systems in Europe cannot be reduced to the polar notions of "capture" and "repression", but that the channels of pressure and influence between governments and their financial systems have often been bi-directional and mutually reinforcing

Beyond financial repression and regulatory capture. The recomposition of European financial ecosystems after the crisis

The financial crisis has radically and rapidly changed the political economy of the European financial system. The evolution of relations between European states and their respective financial systems has given rise to two competing narratives. On the one hand, government agencies are often described as being at the mercy of the financial sector, regularly highjacking political, regulatory and supervisory processes. This trend is often referred to as "regulatory capture" and would explain the "soft touch" regulation and bank bailout. On the other hand, governments are portrayed as subverting markets and abusing the financial system for their benefit, mainly to obtain better financing conditions and allocate credit to the economy on preferential terms, a trend called "financial repression" that is considered corrosive to the proper functioning of free markets and a source of capital misallocation. This paper takes a critical look at this debate in the European context. First, he argues that the relationship between governments and financial systems in Europe cannot be reduced to the polar notions of "capture" and "repression", but that the channels of pressure and influence between governments and their financial systems have often been two-way. Secondly, it puts these issues in a historical perspective and shows that the current reconfiguration of national financial systems in Europe is not simply a return to the "interventionist" policies of the past, although it is influenced by the path-dependency of national institutions and characterised by a broader political and economic role for public bodies (public credit institutions, financial supervision agencies, central bank, European relief fund, etc.)

EUROPEAN LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND CORPORATE E-LEARNING ACTIVITIES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

The purpose of this analysis is to test the hypothesis which growth in workers’ competency level is affected by educational, training and workplace features. We focused above all on the corporate e-learning activities and labour productivity, in order to identify differences between European countries. Our findings showed some statistical significances related to six variables concerning a macro view of knowledge and innovation in the workplace, whereby we highlighted the comparison of mutual positions of European countries on the basis of a potential component of investments in human capital which is e-learning. According to statistical significativity we specifically noted that most Northern European countries have a comparative advantage in terms of labour productivity and direct investments than those in the south.corporate e-learning, European labour productivity, principal component analysis

An exploratory analysis of the effects of ownership change on airport competition

Common or group ownership of airports poses a particular challenge for policy-makers, in that consumers (airlines and passengers) may not have access to benefits that stem from a more competitive system (e.g. lower prices, higher quality of service). However, whilst the arguments for and against group versus individual operations are well known, there are only limited practical cases when a change from common to individual ownership has occurred. One such case is in Scotland where the ownership of Edinburgh and Glasgow airports was separated in 2012. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to undertake a comparative assessment of the impact of this ownership change on the nature of competition between the two airports for the period 2006-2017. Catchment areas overlap, so it was hypothesised that separate ownership would lead to a more intense competitive rivalry with consequent effects on route development, traffic growth, the level/structure of aeronautical charges, financial performance, capital investment and quality of service. A number of key performance indicators covering these areas have been analysed, both before and after 2012 to assess whether there is evidence of a more competitive environment. The main findings are (i) traffic and routes have increased at both airports, although their relative roles appear to have changed; (ii) published charge levels have increased (iii) aeronautical yield has increased at Edinburgh but declined at Glasgow; (iv) prices have diverged reflecting differences in core market price elasticities; strategies have also been driven by a broader financial imperative around maximising EBITDA given declining unit costs and stagnation in non-aeronautical yields; (vi) certain performance indicators suggest that efficiency and service quality have improved. The implications for policy-makers are that airport market re-structuring and ownership change will most likely lead to divergence in pricing and route development strategies

Airport Competition with the Scottish Lowlands Region

The aim of this paper is to undertake an assessment of airport competition within the Scottish Lowlands region, which has experienced significant variations in economic development, and to examine whether competitive forces have been strengthening or weakening in recent years. This region covers the airports of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Prestwick in the last twelve years they have all experienced changes in ownership. BAA which had, for many years, operated both Edinburgh and Glasgow airports, sold the former to GIP in 2012 whilst in 2013 the Scottish Government purchased the privately-owned Prestwick. During this period there were also significant changes in airline network strategies. In order to assess the competitive pressures facing these airports, three key areas are considered, namely: aeronautical charging policy, the service quality provided and traffic development. The analysis shows that since ownership separation, competition has intensified between Edinburgh and Glasgow, whilst Prestwick airport, which benefitted from Ryanair expansion in the 1990s, is now a significantly diminished competitive proposition in the Scottish Lowland market. This has implications not only for airport policy and economic regulation but also for broader economic well-being in this region