Overview

The School is mainly addressed to researchers, postgraduate and PhD students, representatives and officials of national and local regulatory authorities, Central Public Administrations, regional and local governments, staff of international organizations, NGOs and consultancies who intend to study in depth some of the most relevant issues for regulation, tariff setting and management of local public services, either of environmental interest or not. The programme is designed as an intensive workshop, combining theoretical modules and case studies. 

More specifically the course is designed as follows: 

- Part one is devoted to theory, economic models and analytical instruments for local regulation; 

- Part two includes sector analysis of the main industrial local public services (e.g. water cycle, urban waste), country-based cases studies and guest lectures

- Part three offers local site-visits and a practical experience with virtual regulatory case studies developed by working groups.
 

Topics covered

1. THEORY OF REGULATION FROM ORIGINS TO PRINCIPAL-AGENT, INCENTIVES AND MECHANISM DESIGN:
 - Regulation as a game of incomplete information: incentives and mechanism design in local regulation
 - Natural / legal monopoly and market failures
 - Regulatory Authorities at local level: constraints
 - Regulatory targets: price/demand, costs, profits, quality
- Economic analysis for regulation : public and private costs, industrial economic analysis, capital budgeting  sensitivity analysis, risk analysis
 - Regulatory policies: ex-ante and ex-post regulation, auction, price-cap, IRR, other instruments

2. CASE-STUDIES AND GUEST LECTURES:
 - Sector-based case studies (e.g. water cycle, urban waste management)
 - Country-based case studies
 - Guest lectures by international experts and practitioners

3. ON-THE-FIELD WORK:
- Site-visits to local plants
- Working groups to develop virtual local regulatory case studies: regulatory goals, data collection, information asymmetries management, analysis and definition of tariff regulation or other regulatory aspects
- Production and presentation of a final report


The 2024 edition will focus on local public services for circular economy, including case studies on energy, waste and water. 

The detailed programme 2024 will be realeased in the next week. Download the programme outline to discover the topics that will be covered.


Do you want to know more?

Have a look to the video presentation of the lectures.
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