The 22nd ANACOM seminar saw the presentation ''The Future Direction of Regulation'' 1 by Michael Crew, Director of the Center for Research in Regulated Industries (CRRI), Rutgers University and CRRI Professor of Regulatory Economics. The seminar took place in Lisbon's SANA Malhoa Hotel on 19 October, at 15:30pm.
''Rate or price regulation has a century long history in the United States. In Europe, it is more recent tracing its origins to the 80s.
For many years regulation was rather stable with rate-of-return (ROR) or cost-of-service (COS) regulation continuing for many years with small change. Regulatory economics was not even a topic in industrial organization until the 70s and 80s. Around this time major changes occurred and regulation became a relatively rapidly developing process.
This seminar examines some of the forces currently affecting the direction of regulation. Although the discussion will involve regulation generally, the main focus will be on the postal sector as it is undergoing changes of a magnitude probably never seen before in its history. Full Market Opening (FMO) in 2011/13 and the impact of inter-modal competition mean that public operators (POs) and regulators are entering new territory. The future will include access, new product development, and even the nature of the surviving postal sector. Regulation will play a major role. For example, the Directive has explicitly raised the issue of the net cost of the USO and the possibility of subsidies.
POs and regulators will need to develop processes to address both of these issues. A potentially promising way to proceed might be the process on quality standards developed in Portugal.''
(Michael CREW, 2009)
1 This presentation is the exclusive responsibility of its author and does not necessarily represent or is in any way binding upon the position of ANACOM.
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