Regulating seaports is difficult in general, even more so for the weak regulatory institutions common in developing countries. For this reason some countries have awarded these facilities via Demsetz auctions, to the port operator that bids the lowest cargo-handling fee. A major concern with...

The dissertation attempts to see whether liberalizing Pakistan’s national rail transport system will enable the latter to grow sustainably. First an assessment of existing literature on the subject was conducted. Then Pakistan’s national rail transport system is studied in a multi-facet...

"Regulatory reform" once meant either "alternatives to rate-of-return regulation" or "the advantages of privatization". Now that a broad consensus has been reached on each of these two topics, at least among economists, one subject that has moved to center stage is "vertical restructuring". Many...

Naturally monopolistic network industries are subject to regulation of access to market and charging in order to achieve optimal use of infrastructure and avoid the abuse of monopoly power. Relatively little is known what results does such regulation generate and whether it achieves objectives....

What is a good balance between competition and coordination in network industries? Network unbundling aims to promote competition, but this has to be balanced against the downside of unbundling: firm-internal coordination falls away and must be replaced by external market mechanisms. This is a...

The economic regulation of railway infrastructure in Australia covers all links which are part of the interconnected rail system in Australia, since such infrastructure represents a natural monopoly. However, railways form part of logistics chains and the extent to which monopoly power can...

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) is a classic example of regulation, and the origins and operation of this agency have been much analyzed. These have been variously described as examples of public interest regulation, capture regulation, and what I have called predatory regulation. By...

This publication (of 264 pages) represents the proceedings of a roundtable on regulation and competition issues arising in relation to railways. The roundtable was held at the OECD in October 1997. The proceedings includes 2 background papers examining issues in the regulation of railways and...

Unbundling of vertically integrated utilities has become an integral element in the regulation of network industries and has been implemented in many jurisdictions. The idea of separating the network, as the natural monopoly, from downstream retailing, which may be exposed to competition, is...