Activities
The
HERMES (Higher Education and Research on Mobility Regulation and the Economics
of Local Services) research center promotes high quality research and
sustains post-graduate education on the themes of law and economics of
local public transport and regulated services. The initial activities
of HERMES concerned the study of legal and economic problems connected
with the Local Public Transport (LPT) reform started with Law 549/95 and
Legislative Directives 422/97 and 400/99, and implemented through regional
laws. The first studies embraced a series of topics which can be summarized
as follows:
- technology, cost structure and production efficiency;
- tender procedures, subsidy policies and incentive mechanisms;
- demand analysis and tariff integration;
- evolution of local level regulation and legislative discipline concerning
labour contracts.
HERMES
has subsequently expanded its field of analysis to study other regulated
sectors similar to TPL: energy (gas and electricity), water services and
environmental services (waste collection and treatment). Many public utilities
have already been active for some time in several network services and
new multi-product companies are appearing following the liberalization
process of public services. The study of economic and technological links
among different activities (e.g. cross-subsidization, scope economies),
and of the aspects which are common to different utility services are
therefore useful in evaluating the future market structures, the strategic
conduct of the operators and the repercussions on users in terms of tariff
levels and quality of the services. To this respect, the 2002 Financial
Law is particularly relevant, in that it provides for all local public
services:
- the separation between network ownership and service
management;
- the resort to tender procedures for all services with industrial characteristics;
- the need to privatize for those companies which intend to participate
in the bidding.
The liberalization process of public utilities is not
confined to Italy but embraces all European countries. The aim is to create
a single European market for energy, environmental, water, transport and
telecommunications services, thus giving concrete life to the idea of
a "European consumer". The future research themes of HERMES
then naturally will be extended to analyse how the above cited issues
are taken in other European countries. Comparative studies can in fact
be useful to critically analyse the evolution of the institutional and
regulatory framework in our country.
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| this page updated
06/18/2003 16:43
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