Scientific Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1,7, University of Applied Sciences Essen, course: VWL, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the regulation of natural monopolies by the government. In general, regulation pursues the goal to guarantee equal opportunities within a market and to sustainably encourage competitive markets to the advantage of the consumer by affecting the conduct of the monopolist. A natural monopoly arises when a single firm is able to supply a good or service to an entire market at a lower cost than two or more firms. This failure of competition is the result of a specific market, in which variety of suppliers causes a decline of market output. For example this could happen when there are extremely high fixed costs, such as large-scale infrastructure needed to ensure supply (like cables and conductions regarding the telecommunications sector) and it is more efficient to only allow one firm to supply to the market. Allowing other firms entering the market would mean they had to duplicate all the fixed costs, which in turn states that competition would lead to inefficient duplication of resources. Usually, government intervention is necessary within natural monopolies, because in that case the existence of a monopoly is beneficial and efficient or even unavoidable, but negative effects, which could be a result of the position, need to be avoided. In a first step, this paper will refer to these negative effects, which can arise from a naturally monopolistic situation and lead to economic issues. Hence, you can conclude why natural monopolies need to get regulated. Subsequently, this paper will outline methods how to regulate a market, but due to the fact that there are many different opportunities, this paper will only refer to a few examples to give a small insight. In a final step, the paper will give an example of a current regulation system in Germany. In this case the regulation system will be the telecommunications sector. On the basis of this sector, it will be demonstrated if its regulation was successful and how the government tried to regulate the market.

Competition in network industries faces particular problems which are analyzed from both a theoretical and policy perspective. Issues of vertical integration, deregulation and privatization are covered. While competition and privatization are rapidly unfolding in telecommunications in Western and Eastern Europe, energy and railway transportation represent sectors of more gradual liberalization. The different market characteristics of telecommunications, energy and transportation raise consistency problems in the fields of deregulation, investment strategies and internationalization. While transformation policies create opportunities for liberalization in Eastern Europe and Russia the latter shows critical problems in ending monopoly and state ownership. Network industries could be subject to competition and promise major investment opportunities plus consumer benefits.

Recent work in the field of telecommunication economics, with particluar emphasis on its international regulatory aspects, is the focus of the present volume, which assembles an annotated bibliography of nearly four hundred authoritative and up-to-date books and articles on more than fifteen related topics.

Originally published in 1992 this book charts the global restructuring of telecommunications industries away from the monopoly structures of the past towards increased competition, deregulation and privatization. The book's authors are international policy-makers and scholars, who examine the regulatory environment within a theoretical and historical context. The book looks at the roots of regulatory and legislative changes by discussing individually the countries at the forefront of the revolution: the UK, France, Germany, Japan and the United States. It examines the impact of new technology for consequences of change in trade and government policies.