Infraestructuras: ¿Qué podemos decir los economistas?

de Rus, Gines (2000): Infraestructuras: ¿Qué podemos decir los economistas? Published in: La investigación económica en España: 1990-2000. Una década de cambios. (2001)

Abstract

Infrastructures have been traditionally built, maintained and operated by the public sector. Road and railway networks, energy, electricity and water were traditionally designed in public sector headquarters in many countries until the eighties. Since then, and due to fiscal crisis and public sector inefficiencies, among other factors, privatization is a key ingredient of the industrial policy all over the world.

Technological change and the analysis of economists have modified the conventional view which assimilated infrastructure and public monopoly. Technological developments explain part of the change in the telecommunication markets. Moreover, the economic analysis showed that the electricity sector, railways or ports had several activities which could be unbundled as a way to introduce competition.

One of the field which has attracted the attention of economic research in the last two decades is the contribution of public infrastructure to economic growth, though economists had been investigating long time before how to assess investment projects in public infrastructure, or how should prices be set in the context of long live assets, sunk costs, congestion and externalities

This paper provides a broad overview of the economics of infrastructure.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: Infrastructure: what can the economists say?
• Language: Spanish
• Keywords: Infraestructure, utilities, regulation cost-benefit analysis
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods; K - Law and Economics > K2 - Regulation and Business Law > K23 - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law; L - Industrial Organization > L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities > L91 - Transportation: General; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D61 - Allocative Efficiency ; Cost-Benefit Analysis

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