Journal Title:  ECONOMIA PUBBLICA

Author/s: Valeria Mazzantini

Year: 2008 Issue: 3-4 Language: IT
Pages: 19 Fulltext PDF:593 KB
DOI: 10.3280/EP2008-003004
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Abstract:
La liberalizzazione dei servizi pubblici locali alla luce del federalismo funzionale: il caso dei servizi energetici - The theory of FOCJ (Functional, Overlapping, Competing Jurisdictions) introduces a notion of functional federalism in which each jurisdiction is responsible for the provision of a specific class of public goods. In other terms, in the model citizens can choose some local public goods without moving from one jurisdiction to another, as Buchanan’s and Tiebout’s theories would require. This theory appears especially suitable to explain and illustrate the evolution of the Italian case, in which the liberalisation of the energy sector has enabled the consumers to choose their own gas and electricity supplier. This could be achieved detaching the production and marketing of the service from the management of the related network. In this way, it is possible to introduce for the first time a real competition between suppliers of local public goods and to break off the monopolies of the local incumbent: citizens addressing the same seller, belong to the same «functional jurisdictions», while citizens living in the same area can belong to different jurisdictions. In the future, we can foresee the emergence of two kinds of jurisdiction: small jurisdictions, highly localized, where the supplied service is highly specialized and customised; and bigger jurisdictions, characterized by the exploitation of economies of scale, in which the supplied service is undifferentiated and cheaper. JEL D72, H410, H73