“ Innovation in Network Industries : Accounting , economic and regulatory implications ”

Network industries lie at the heart of economy and society. They provide key infrastructures and technologies, and have deserved indeed special missions of general interest. Therefore, they used to be organized as publicly owned monopolistic entities, thus subject to administrative law and regulation. Nowadays, these industries are undergoing major economic transformations. From one side, they have been gradually opened up to competition, which has drastically changed their structure and functioning. From another side, the rapid digitization of our economies and society, fuelled by network information and knowledge technologies, favors the emergence of new industrial players and new services, as well as it changes the design, production, distribution and consumption of related goods and services. Finally, industrial deregulation, technological change, financialization and globalization effects, international accounting convergence, the ongoing financial crisis, just to name some, have challenged industrial affairs. This has increased the risk of developing disparate and even rival modes of governance and regulation, with divergent functioning, implementation patterns and rationale.