Antonio Nicita

In Dubio Pro Reo. Behavioral Explanations of Pro-defendant Bias in Procedures

The standard model of optimal deterrence predicts that the probability of wrongful conviction of the innocent is, at the margin, as detrimental to deterrence as the wrongful acquittal of guilty individuals. We extend the model in several directions: using expected utility as well as nonexpected utility to consider the role of risk aversion, non-linear probability weighting and loss aversion. We also consider how relevant emotions such as guilt, shame and indignation play out. Several of these factors support the intuition that wrongful convictions of the innocent do have a larger detrimental impact on deterrence and thus the policy implications are reconciled with the widely shared maxim in dubio pro reo. We then draw some theoretical implications such as a novel justification for the different standards of proof in criminal vs civil law as well as other policy implications.

Liberalization Patterns: The Case of Electronic Communications

This chapter offers a specific focus on the liberalization patterns in the telecommunications sector, which has been steadily at the heart of national and international debates about industrial policy in Europe in the last decades. With reference to the telecommunications market, we discuss the role of institutional complementarities and show that the removal of entry barriers to market before the establishment of a regulatory authority has reduced, in some countries, the positive impact of liberalizations on the telecommunications market structure.

Liberalization, Antitrust, and Pro-Consumer Policies

This chapter focuses on the role that competition and pro-consumer policies play in enhancing the impact of liberalization. Concerning antitrust law, the analysis will be devoted in particular to the so-called essential facility doctrine and to the enforcement of antitrust law against margin squeeze abuses of a dominant position. Recent cases have raised the question of how to define the proper boundary between regulation and competition policy in this respect. We then analyze the so-called “demand side” liberalization policy, i.e., policies and regulation aimed at empowering the final consumer in order to enhance freedom to choose among providers, to reduce switching costs, and to increase churn rates.

Political Market Design in Network Industries

This chapter focuses on the political determinants of liberalization and, particularly, on the debate raised by the empirical literature. We report updated data on market liberalizations and analyze countries’ aggregate trends and sectoral patterns. In particular, we explore such heterogeneity in market liberalization patterns and analyze the role played by government ideology. We show that right-wing governments pushed for privatization policies more intensively than left-oriented ones, whereas left-wing governments favored liberalization over privatization. Thus, within the common neoliberalism wave, a partisan trade-off between privatization and liberalization seems to have characterized OECD countries’ governance of network industries. We propose and discuss various interpretations of these findings, including the role of policy diffusion dynamics, swing voters signaling, possible policy reversal and institutional drivers effects, the role of public finance concerns, and the emergence of new political agendas.

Liberalizations, Privatizations, and Institutional Market Design

In this chapter, we investigate the economic relationship between liberalization and privatization policies, the content of pro-competitive regulation, and the institutional design associated with both liberalization and privatization. We investigate how countries’ deregulation patterns have been characterized by both liberalization and privatization. Here, we introduce an important question: that is, whether there is an optimal sequencing of the reforms. In particular, we explain that there are four dimensions through which liberalization–privatization paths can be characterized (bias, balance, gradualism, and possible reversals). Finally, we analyze both countries’ aggregate and sectoral data and identify the specific patterns that have been chosen by governments in network industries.

The Liberalization of Network Industries: Meaning and Purpose

In this chapter, we analyze the economic meaning and objective of liberalization policies in network industries, traditionally characterized by natural monopoly and originally controlled by public ownership. We briefly recall the main features of alternative market forms (perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly) as distinct from those characterizing natural monopoly through decreasing average costs over the range of relevant output, non-divisibility of the network, high cost of duplicating the network infrastructure, and public or universal service obligations. We then outline the many economic facets of network industries and the evolution of liberalization and regulation in OECD countries.

On Virtual Strike: Meaning, Misunderstandings and Mirages

Nel febbraio 2009 il governo italiano ha approvato un disegno di legge per la regolamentazione e prevenzione dei conflitti collettivi di lavoro con riferimento alla libera circolazione delle persone. Una delle novita riguarda la disciplina dello sciopero virtuale. Lapproccio seguito alla legge delega circa questa forma di sciopero sembra presentare tuttavia, alla luce dellanalisi economica degli incentivi, alcuni rilevanti problemi.