Regulation is one of the tools used by governments to control monopolistic behaviour in the provision of public services such as electricity, transport or water. Technological and financial innovations have changed these public services markets since the 1990s, bringing new regulatory challenges, including technological and financial ones. This book demonstrates that basic regulatory theory and tools can address these new challenges, in addition to more traditional regulatory issues, both in developed and developing economies. The theory covered in the book is robust enough to guide regulators in multiple contexts, including those resulting from the effects of financial or political constraints, evolving market structures or the need to adapt to institutional weaknesses, climate change and poverty concerns that demand regulatory intervention. A bridge between theory and an evolving global practice, this book mobilizes the lessons of the past to analyse the future of economic regulation.

List of figures List of tables List of boxes Foreword 'Jean Tirole' Preface Acknowledgements List of symbols List of abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Defining a theoretical normative benchmark 3. Thinking like a monopoly about price and output 4. Regulating a monopoly with full information 5. Regulating under informational constraints 6. Regulatory rules to set the average price 7. Linking regulatory theory to practice through finance 8. Non-Linear pricing in regulation 9. Social concerns in regulatory design 10. Regulating quality 11. On the regulation of investment 12. Regulating multi-product oligopolies 13. Abuse of market power in (de)regulated industries 14. On the relevance of institutional quality 15. Emerging regulatory challenges