Access to networks: economic and constitutional connections.

A fundamental transformation is taking place in the basic approach to regulating network industries. Policy makers are in the proces of abandoning their century-old commitment to rate regulation in favor of a novel regulatory approach known as access regulation. Rather than controlling the price of output the of recent origin approach focuses on compelling access to and mandating the price of inputs. Unfortunately, this shift in regulatory policy has not been met with an accompanying shift in the manner in which regulatory authorities regulate prices. Specifically, policy makers have continued