Editorial: Paths of transport regulatory reform

Abstract

In the economic literature on transport regulatory reform it is usually considered how the analysis can further help to improve regulatory efficiency when it is necessary to make industries perform more competitively. Particularly, economists are asked to set up not so much the possibility as the probability of an activity being in one side or the other of the virtual line which separates standard competitive conduct from behaviour that undermines market competition. In this editorial note I consider that in the real world action spaces lie in a continuum between the polar opposites of cooperative/non-cooperative behaviour given that a drastic dichotomy between total cooperation and total non-cooperation is not the best interpretation of the alternatives available to players in a market. Moreover, I believe that economists are challenged to provide 'action tools' or heuristic rules to help in the antitrust decision process due to world complexities, uncertainties and vagueness. I advance the research proposal that this kind of world - usually dealt with probability theory - be confronted using a different approach based on higher level of abstraction originating from previous knowledge and experience. The tool of fuzzy logic and the relevant speculations in the theory of fuzzy sets may provide new contributions that guide the decision process as well as the setting of design and implementation of antitrust and regulatory policies.