Competition policy, regulation and the institutional design of industry supervision

We study the welfare impact of enforcing a competitive behavior from an unregulated fringe competing with a regulated dominant operator with imperfectly differentiated goods. The fringe is potentially collusive but may be supervised by a competition authority. We show that the complementarity/substitutability between regulation and competition policy strongly depends on the nature of the market interaction. Forcing the fringe to adopt a competitive behavior always benefits consumers. However, it also affects the amount of subsidy that must be provided to the regulated firm for cost-reimbursement purposes, which has a social cost when public funds are costly. With complements, antitrust intervention is always welfare-improving. It is also preferable with weak substitutes but is detrimental to welfare for strong substitutes.Regulation, Competition policy

Improving Implementation by National Regulatory Authorities. EIPAScope, 2003(3): pp. 26-30

National regulatory authorities (NRAs) in the liberalised utility markets have a significant role in policy making and policy enforcement. Much of the debate about them has revolved around their independence from Member State governments, yet independence alone is not sufficient to ensure effective regulation across the internal market. Poor co-operation procedures among NRAs, lack of regulatory impact assessment procedures and weak decision-making procedures between an NRA and the Commission may seriously hamper the functioning of the internal market for telecom and electricity. By bringing the NRAs together and establishing a veto rule, the Commission is on the right track concerning the telecom sector. Yet further improvements can be made by setting general EU regulatory principles in close relation with common transparency obligations in NRA decision-making

The impact of policies on the division of labour : a new approach

There are considerable differences between most European countries in respect both of the division of labour within families and the policies that seek to influence that division. These policies are based, implicitly or explicitly, on assumptions about what constitutes an effective policy measure. However, little is known about how to measure the effects of such policies on the division of labour. Moreover, the emergence of a supranational political entity, i.e. the European Union, requires a new approach to the evaluation of national policies. In this article, the authors put forward a theoretical framework to be used in an international study of the effects of policies on the division of paid and unpaid work in EU member states. This proposed framework will be empirically tested in a research project to be conducted in the next few years by members of a European network of social scientists who have been working together since 1995.division of labour;government policy;unpaid work;domestic work

Financial Disclosure and the Board: Is Independence of Directors Always Efficient

In listed companies, the Board of directors is the ultimate responsible of information disclosure. The "conventional wisdom" considers independence of directors as the essential attribute to improve the quality of that disclosure. In a sense, this approach subordinates expertise to independence. However, effective certification may require finn-specific expertise, in particular for intangible-intensive business models. However, this latter form of expertise is negatively related to independence as it is commonly measured and evaluated. We show that there exists an optimal share of independent directors for each company, related to the magnitude of intangible resources.Board of directors; information disclosure; accounting; intangible resources

What future for codetermination and corporate governance in Germany?

Contrary to the prognosis derived from the variety of capitalism literature, since the mid-90s the significant restructuring of large German corporations in the direction of shareholder value seems to have been compatible with the persistence of a genuine configuration of industrial relations, including co-determination at the firm level. This article investigates whether this is a long lasting compatibility and tests various research programs in institutional economics and thus explores the consequences alternative hypotheses about institutional complementarity or hierarchy, comparative institutional analysis, comparative historical analysis, hybridization and finally régulation theory. Even if the process is highly uncertain, one major conclusion emerges: the old German model is probably irreversibly transformed and is evolving towards an unprecedented configuration, with only mild and distant relations to a typical liberal brand of capitalism.variety of capitalisms ; codetermination ; shareholder value ; german capitalism ; institutional complementarity / hierarchy ; comparative institutional analysis ; hybridization ; "régulation" theory ; german crisis

Democracy and social democracy facing contemporary capitalisms: A "régulationist" approach

This article surveys some old and recent political economy research about the long term transformations and contemporary diversity in the mutual relationships between State, civil society and the economy. The hypothesis of institutional complementarity is extended from the institutional forms that sustain "regulation" modes to the analysis of the spill over from the polity to the economy and conversely from the economy to the polity. In spite of common challenges originating from individualization, globalization and financiarization, contrasted national trajectories for socio-economic and political regimes still coexist in contemporary world. The assessment of the relative merits of liberal capitalism, social-liberalism and renewed social-democracy suggests that the later regime is the best suited to limit the process of de-democratization to follow the concept coined by Charles Tilly in his 2007 book on "Democracy". Would social-democracy be the best rampart against the contemporary disenchantment about democracy? This unconventional hypothesis has to be mitigated by the fact that social-democracy - but also liberal democracy - cannot be imported as such. Its basic principles have to follow a process of hydridization according to various national traditions, let them be statist in France or meso-coporatist in Japan since the new demands from diverse civil societies have to be taken into account.variety of capitalisms ; long run evolutions of capitalism ; institutional complementarity hypothesis ; socioeconomic-political regimes ; liberalism, variety of democracies ; old and new social-democracy ; régulation theory

Regulatory Agencies, the State and Markets: A Franco-British Comparison

The article examines whether and how independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) have altered the strategies, relationships and power of French policy makers in markets and whether they led to convergence with Britain in state-market relations. It relates these questions to broader debates about the extent to which previous policy-making systems have been transformed, whether Europe has one regulatory state or several, whether France has become a form of 'liberal market economy' and the power of the state after reform of markets. It argues that although, as in Britain, France has established IRAs with responsibilities for ensuring competition in key economic domains, French state strategies remained very different from British ones and markets operate very differently in the two countries. Moreover, the break with the past has been limited: public policy makers continue to have significant capacities to mould markets and delegation to IRAs has often reinforced the power of existing elites and aided the adaptation of traditional French industrial strategies to new conditions. Thus even if France has adopted the formal institutions of competitive markets, it has not converged with a liberal market economy such as Britain in terms of strategies and behaviour. State forms and instruments may have altered, but an activist French industrial policy is alive and well.regulation, independent regulatory agencies, electricity, 3G mobiles

The régulation of transborder network services

Ce papier présente un cadre analytique simple permettant de comprendre les problèmes de coordination entre gestionnaires d'infrastructure nationaux en présence de service internationaux (i.e., qui doivent utiliser les différentes infrastructures) et les rôles pontentiels pour l'intervention d'une autorité supra-nationale à la fois au niveau des décisions d'investissement mais aussi aux niveaux des politiques de tarification de l'accès et de financement des infrastructures