European Regulatory Economics

The aim of the course is to discuss the fundamental principles of Industrial Economics, Economics of network industries and Regulation Economics. The theoretical analysis will be applied to the case of Services of General Interest such as the telecommunications and energy sectors. We will analyse their industrial structure, the organization and governance and how they have changed as a result of the important changes introduced by the European reforms of liberalization, privatization and unbundling. . We will discuss the impact of these reforms on market prices, quality of service, accessibility, and more generally on consumer welfare.

At the end of the course, the students will be able:
- to know the theoretical models of regulatory impact
- to understand the value chains of the electricity, gas and telecommunication sectors and their main characteristics.
- to know, in brief, the history of the regulatory reforms in these sectors in different European countries.
- to interpret the impact of different policy paradigms by understanding the results of previous studies based on basic quantitative econometric techniques.
- to critically analyses the effect of regulatory reforms on different dimensions of consumer welfare
- to write a clear essay and deliver a compelling presentation on the impact of regulatory reforms in a specific country and sector