Contenu du sommaire : Numéro Spécial. Déréglementation, privatisation et concurrence

Regulation and competition: some elements of economic theory, by David Encaoua. This paper presents elements of economic theory which shed some light on the debate surrounding deregulation of some industries. It deals in particular with the cases of activities where competition is considered to be inefficient and/or impracticable: telecommunications, air and road transport... Until the midsixties it was tradtionally accepted that the flaws in market mechanisms which resulted from these weaknesses in competition justified a measure of government regulation in terms of controls on prices and on supply structures. Since then, however, this notion has come in for a certain amount of criticism, mainly in the United States, the critics arguing either that the mechanisms of regulation themselves are faulty or that the basic premise justifying the regulation of economic forces by the State is no more true. The paper goes on to examine this latter type of argument by analysing the theory of contestable markets, which has come to be a new paradigm in analysing competition. The central issue is thus the following: can the threat of potential competitors entering the market and new technologies breaching boundaries of activity which form natural monopolies actually exert sufficient pressure for free market forces to lead to results which are satisfactory all round ? The situation of the natural multi-product monopoly which entails no sunk costs is examined in detail, in particular in terms of the cost allocation problem. Finally, the paper examines to what extent the recent deregulation experiments in the United States confirm the predictions of the contestable market theory by studying the cases of the air transport and telecommunications industries. JEL : Classification number 612

Privatization in the United Kingdom aims and achievements, by Jean-Jacques Santini. The policy of privatization which the United Kingdom embarked on in 1979 is far-reaching enough to constitute an unprecedented experience which most of the industrialized nations are observing with interest. After a short summary of the main development in the british public sector from 1945 to the present days, this paper attempts to analyse the privatization policy which Mrs Thatcher's government is carrying out in terms of its aims and achievements. The process is far from complete at the moment and is even likely to speed up over the next three years, furthermore its impact cannot always be appreciated in the short term, so the conclusions which are drawn remain incomplete. It would appear, nevertheless, that the main objectives of the British Government — improving the performance of public sector firms, reducing State influence on the economy, relaxing budgetary constraints, developing popular investment and employee share schemes and reducing the power of the unions — have been accomplished to a satisfactory extent. Although certain questions remain to be answered, the British privatization policy, which has been reasonably empirical in its approach, appears successful enough to be considered as an example to be followed by some other countries. JEL: Classification number 614.