1998
Copyright PERSEE 2003-2023. Works reproduced on the PERSEE website are protected by the general rules of the Code of Intellectual Property. For strictly private, scientific or teaching purposes excluding all commercial use, reproduction and communication to the public of this document is permitted on condition that its origin and copyright are clearly mentionned.
Jean-Jacques Laffont et al., « On the Political Economy of Regulation », Réseaux. Communication - Technologie - Société, ID : 10.3406/reso.1998.3334
Summary: During the past decade, theoreticians have laid the foundations for optimal normative regulation. Taking as an example the pricing of a communication channel, this article demonstrates the need to go further and choose the lesser of two evils: economic inefficiency or political arbitrariness. The sophisticated pricing methods envisaged by the theory do in fact give politicians considerable latitude to distort tariffs in their own interests or those of the group backing them. Exactly the same type of choice has to be made in laying down constitutional rules governing regulation and privatization.