Essays on regulation, deregulation and institutional changes

This dissertation focuses on the economic effects of institutional changes, with special attention to the role of government intervention. The economic structure that is in place and any restriction a government imposes or lifts determine how economic agents, be they consumers or firms, respond to the incentives they face. Gauging their response is crucial from an economic policy perspective. It is instrumental in defining how policies affect the economy and in determining their welfare effects, that is identifying who gains and who loses following institutional changes. Two basic steps are necessary to this end: first, identifying the actual economic structure in place and second, determining how policy changes interact with the existing economy.; Chapter 2 addresses both issues. I describe the international trucking sector in the European Union, the regulation in place in the 1980s, and the process of deregulation that took place from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. I then identify the effects of deregulation on shippers who need to ship their goods internationally and determine if carriers based in countries that were initially more liberalized gain from deregulation more than carriers based in countries where international road transport was more regulated.; In chapter 3 I analyze the cause of the credit restrictions that exist in rural areas of developing countries. I then focus on one scheme that tries to extend credit to the rural population: building warehouses and issuing warehouse receipts that can then be used as collateral for loans. I show that farmers gain from the implementation of warehouse receipt systems and that much of the gain derives from the ability of grain merchants to indirectly compete with local moneylenders following the subsidization of storage.; Chapter 4 analyzes another instance of government intervention: the institution of the do-not-call list in the US in July 2003, which affected the telemarketing industry. The major contribution of this chapter is to introduce an economic framework that captures the main characteristics of the telemarketing industry. In this framework I treat customers' patience as an exhaustible resource exploited by telemarketers. I show that since telemarketers want to store the resource, the number of calls goes up between the time the list is created and the time it is enforced.