At the end of this course, the student will have a thorough understanding of the conceptual and practical toolbox encompassing cross-border liberalisation, competition policy and regulation developed in EU policy for 6 network industries, highlighting their evolution and the challenges they pose from both an economic and a policy perspective.
The course will equip students with the conceptual framework – economic and regulatory, necessary to understand the role of EU network industries in the EU single market and with up-to-date knowledge of the regulatory tools deployed across them. It will therefore enable them to understand the current and the upcoming policy questions in a crucial part of the EU economy both in terms of its size and, strategically given their ‘input’ function in other sectors, as a key enabler of the well-being of EU citizens and businesses.
The anticipated contents below are only indicative, and remain subject to change conditional on the development of current Covid-19.
The course will have two horizontal sessions and eight sessions for six sectors.
The six network markets which will be dealt with during the course are:
- Electronic communications and the internet (2x);
- Broadcasting and the digital media (1x);
- Air transport (1x);
- Rail (1x);
- Electricity (2x); and
- Gas (1x).
The course will go considerably in-depth into the economic characteristics of network industries, and on how to introduce competition in such sectors at EU level. In different degrees this has now been accomplished in the 6 sectors, following a period of more than 30 years. It will zoom in on the regulatory instruments employed by the Union in all six sectors, and discuss selected competition aspects such as margin squeeze, the theory of access and interconnection, mergers and their timing, and the evolution of the underlying technologies.
Please consult ECTS card.