Linton Rd
Oxford OX2 6UL
UK
This workshop will discuss the increasing importance of ‘fairness’ as a criterion for more active intervention in UK markets, especially energy and telecommunications markets, by economic regulators such as OFGEM and OFCOM.
Fairness defined as fair treatment for consumers demands that economic regulators significantly extend their focus from price regulation to the regulation of the terms of contracts between regulated companies and their customers. Measures to address concerns about the use of private data are of particular importance to any such reforms, as well as the higher compliance costs that regulators would face under such an approach.
Drawing on the recent findings of behavioural economics which suggest that regulators will have to use formal rules for intervention, such as more stringent conditions of service, as well as ‘nudges’ in order to secure compliance, the workshop will bring together academics, practitioners, and policymakers to propose policies to ensure that consumers receive fairer treatment through effective regulation.
Participants include:
Convenor: Frank Vibert, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, and a former Senior Fellow of UNU/WIDER and Senior Advisor at the World Bank
Chair: Denis Galligan, Emeritus Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and Director of Programmes, Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, Oxford
Dr Christopher Decker, Economist and Research Fellow, Faculty of Law, Oxford
Professor Bettina Lange, Associate Professor of Law and Regulation, Oxford