Coûts de la régulation des industries de réseaux : enseignements du réseau postal

An important role in the implementation of liberalization processes in network industries is attributed to regulation and thus to regulatory institutions. Regulation is intended to have positive effect on social welfare by correcting market failures. But state intervention also generate costs which we call costs of regulatory governance. These costs result from negative consequences caused by unnecessary regulatory requirements or from the implementation of inappropriate regulatory instruments. According to new institutional economics, these costs will depend upon the formal and informal rules among the involved actors, upon the allocation of property rights among these actors, as well as upon the various principal-agent or more generally contractual relationships among these actors. In this article we define an analytical framework of costs of regulatory governance. We distinguish between direct and indirect costs of regulation: direct costs are related to the institutional design of the regulatory framework and to the behavior of actors, whereas indirect costs arise because of false incentives and ultimately result in an inefficient supply of goods and services. Using the example of the Swiss postal market, we offer an outline of a possible application of the framework. In the present article we neither intend to quantify regulatory costs nor do we question regulation per se. Rather, we develop a framework which helps to structure a discussion about regulatory challenges in the network industries.