Contenu du sommaire

Bernard J. BARRAQUÉ, Water management in Europe : beyond the privatization debate. The historical and comparative analyse of the development of the industry and institutions of water (catchment, sewerage, and resource management) in five European countries (Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and France) would suggest that the "public-private" debate in water management which recurs periodically, is only masking much larger issues which are transforming water management. A regional level of management is evident everywhere, but the local level has nonetheless not disappeared. The relationship between political authority, the technical personnel responsible for water and citizens is undergoing profound change, becoming more and more a matter for urban and environmental engineering than for civil and sanitation engineering, which constituted the framework at the beginning of the water industry.

Stephen SALSBURY, Emerging global computer and electronic information systems and their challenge to world stock markets. This article examines the emergence of trading procedures on world stock exchanges with particular attention to New York, Sydney and Toronto. It examines how exchanges solve the problem of providing a free, fair and liquid market where individuals and corporations can conduct transactions in an efficient manner than minimises risks. The paper analyses how this was done in the pre-electronic era and then examines the emergence of computerised trading and information systems that transmit stock market activity in real time on a global basis. The paper explains why this may shift businesses from traditional markets such as the New York Stock Exchange to new markets which will arise under the control of institutions such as INSTTNET. The paper also explains why national regulatory systems at present cannot cope with these changes.

Pierre-Henri DERYCKE, Urban concentration and road systems : two approaches to congestion. Part II. Land values : an approach to congestion through the models of the "New Urban Economics". Part I of this article {FLUX 5, July-Sept. 1991) recalled the different forms of congestion in urban centers, then set forth two complementary approaches to urban congestion : from the point of view of traffic engineers, who concentrate on the value of time and the technical characteristics of itineraries (Part I), and that of urban land economists, who emphasize the aspect of profitability and the consequences of alternative usage of the land, and spatial equilibrium of agents (Part II, published here).