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Opening Up Networks to Competition: The Strategic Network Economy Approach by Anne Perrot The network economy, developed since the mid-1980s, examines the consequences of strategic behaviour at work in the markets featuring either the presence of network externalities (supply or demand externalities) or the goods-systems nature of the products provided. When combined with advances in regulation theory, which envisages the implications of asymmetric information situations between regulator and regulated firms, this study throws a great deal of light on the organization that should predominate in the activities previously entrusted to public monopolies. The article studies the implications of this theoretical progress for the operation of the sectors open to competition (transport, telecommunications, energy, etc.).

Air Transport: Review of the American Liberalization Experience and a Lesson for Europe by Laurent Kenigswald The complete liberalization of the European skies scheduled for 1 April 1997 should take the form of a substantial restructuring of the supply, a drop in prices and a stimulation of demand. These forecasts, shared by the vast majority of air transport specialists, are based on the analysis of the extensive changes made in the United States over more than fifteen years. Most of these changes can be transposed to the European market: greater choice, widening of the price range and decrease in average rates. The ways in which these changes are made could nevertheless differ from those observed in the United States. They will probably rely less on a reorganization of the networks into a hub and spoke system and more on a decrease in the costs of insufficiently competitive airlines. Although the assessment of the liberalization of the American skies is largely positive, the analysis reveals certain "failures" by the body in charge of regulating competition. The national regulatory authorities and the European Commission will have to avoid reproducing these errors, in particular by finding the means to effectively curb congestion in the sky and certain airports.

Opening Up Energy Monopolies to Competition: General Analysis and Study of the British Experience by Bertrand Mourre The deregulation of electricity in Europe could take on a number of different forms in the future. This article compares the advantages and disadvantages of these forms. The integrated Single Buyer System appears to be efficient, as it correctly integrates the long-term consideration and avoids an asymmetry of information between the producer and the network manager. Yet it also has disadvantages from the point of view of competition. The situation is inverse for the Disintegrated Single Buyer system and the Access of Third Parties to the Network system. The article then analyzes the British gas and electricity deregulation experience. This appears to be relatively satisfactory from the point of view of competition and productivity. Nevertheless, the long-term programming of electricity investments remains one of the system's weaknesses.

Ten Years of Telecommunications Reform in the United Kingdom: Failure to Steer the Market Structure and Complete Liberalization of the Market, by Axel Thonier This article studies the development of the telecommunications sector in the United Kingdom over the last ten years. It endeavours to provide something of an assessment, highlighting the main trends of this deregulation and privatization movement: a gradual increase in competition and stronger rate regulation coupled with BT privatization. In spite of the failure to steer the market structure with a duopoly from 1984 to 1991, the British experience led to considerable efficiency gains, lower cost-related rates and a more diversified supply in 1995. At European level, OFTELis at the vanguard of national regulators who will have to adjust their respective situations by the 1 January 1998 deadline for the complete liberalization of the sector.

Regulating Monopolies and the Social Cost of Public Funds by Dominique Bureau The new regulatory economy has brought to light the conflicting objectives faced by all regulators endeavouring to promote the efficiency of a natural monopoly without leaving it excessive rents. The arbitration between these two terms depends on the chosen social cost of the public funds. The apparent dispersion of the regulatory mechanisms that are actually used, in terms of rents left and thus of incentive, suggests that this social cost is not determined purely by tax biases. The risk of these rents becoming dissipated in the form of capital accumulation to discourage potential competition from unregulated substitutes could explain why, in some cases, regulators are apparently reluctant to leave rents.

The Generalized Method of Moments. Theoretical Extensions and Macroeconomic Applications by Patrick Fève and François Langot The purpose of this paper is to present the main theoretical results obtained when using the Generalized Method of Moments. Principles, statistical properties and various illustrations of the estimator of this method are discussed. Then covariance matrix computation methods are explained and various specification tests examined. A number of extensions of this method are also studied. Lastly, the use of such a method is illustrated by empirically applying it to the estimation of the structural parameters of a Consumption Based Capital Asset Pricing Model.

Cleaning Files Containing Individual Data: The Search for Transversal Consistency by Elizabeth Kremp This article first defines the notions of aberrant values and extreme values. It then describes the statistical tools and presents different univaried methods for identifying these values. Eight techniques based on these tools and methods are tested on a file of company data for one ratio. One of the conclusions of these tests is that robust statistics need to be used in the methods seeking to identify aberrant points. Three of these techniques are applied to seven ratios for a comparison, evaluation of the role of the choice of ratios and measurement of the cumulative observation elimination phenomena. Two of these techniques produce very similar results. The easiest technique to apply eliminates the observations situated at more than three interquartile intervals from the first and third quartiles. However, if the distribution of the real population for the variable studied differs greatly from a normal distribution, this technique can eliminate too many observations. In this case, a variant that eliminates the observations at more than five interquartile intervals would appear preferable.