A dramatic change of ownership, regulation, and organisation of
essential public services, such as electricity, gas, and
telecommunications, has taken place in Europe in less than 20
years. This was not the outcome of spontaneous adaptation, but an
entirely top-down policy experiment, mainly conceived in London
during Mrs Thatcher's years, then pursued in Brussels - the
'capital' of the European Union - and imposed on more or less
reluctant players by laws, directives, regulations, and
administrative and judicial decisions. The European reform paradigm
revolves around three pillars: privatisation, unbundling, and
regulated liberalisation of network industries. These industries,
despite the reforms, are still special, as they include core
natural monopoly components (the electricity grid, the gas
pipelines, the telephony networks, etc.), are often based on
complex system integration of different segments (for example of
electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retail
supply), and offer services that have critical social and economic
importance, from heating to internet. This book offers a careful
scrutiny of energy and telephony reforms and prices paid by
households in 15 countries across Western Europe. It attempts to
answer such questions as: Are the consumers in Europe happier than
they were before the reforms? Do they pay less? Do they get a
better quality for the services? Network Industries and Social
Welfare provides an overview of the main facts, the conceptual
issues, and of the empirical evidence on pricing, perceptions of
quality of service, and the issues of utility poverty and social
affordability. It suggests that the benefits of the reforms for the
consumers have often been limited and that governments should
reconsider their overconfidence in regulated market mechanisms in
network industries.
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