CAS in Economics and Regulatory Law

A crisis in the legitimacy of the State and a crisis in public finances—these phenomena have led to the public and private sectors drawing ever closer together and even overlapping each other’s traditional fields of action. Today, the two sectors collaborate in many ways. This course aims to analyse the economic pertinence of those different collaborative models as well as the advantages and disadvantages that different collaborative tools can offer with regard to the legal system currently in place. Combining economic and legal approaches to this topic is one of the course’s strong points. Free of any ideological references favourable to either more or less State involvement, this course implicitly seeks definitions of better State involvement that can be analysed by economists, jurists, political scientists or experts in administrative science.

• Identify all the different possible means of providing public services that fall between totally public provision and totally private provision;
• Know the legal framework governing the different tools involved;
• Set out the economic and legal reasons why a public entity or institution might select one means of provision over another;
• Establish an economic model which integrates and differentiates between all the technical and financial data concerning the different modes of service provision for the duration of a project, and allows an evaluation of their overall cost to the public authorities;
• Know the different types of tariff regulation and how to set them optimally with regards to regulations and constraints on information;
• Identify the procedures for selecting private sector operators and how to understand their relative strengths.

The course is divided into two main parts: economic analysis and legal analysis. Classes are based on an alternation of theoretical and empirical contributions from experts in their fields and classroom discussions. The material is mainly organised along two axes: the dialogue between scientific research and practice, and the particular situation existing in Switzerland in light of the experiences in other countries.

• Students studying for the MAS in Public Administration (MPA);
• Any person—whether active in the public or private sector—who wishes to complete their knowledge in the field of collaboration between the public and private sectors;
• Political representatives and administrative managers;
• Managers of public, parapublic and state-subsidised enterprises;
• Representatives of political parties, interest groups and not-for-profit organisations.

Participants who actively and regularly attend the course, and complete the course project, will be awarded a Foundation of Continuing Education certificate of continuing education/Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Public Administration (with a specialisation in CEMAP). This corresponds to 10 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) credits. Participants who follow the course but decide not to complete the project work will receive a certificate of attendance (but no ECTS credits).

Total course registration fees come to CHF 3,900 (including all documentation), which should be paid on receipt of the invoice, and by the start of the course at the latest.
A discount of 5%, up to a maximum of CHF 500 per course, is available to any IDHEAP alumni—holding an MPA, DAS or CEMAP, an IDHEAP PhD or a Master’s in PMP—who wish to follow a CAS course or a Seminar for Specialist and Executives organised by IDHEAP. This reduction does not apply to participants in the DAS who subsequently wish to follow the MPA course. Any decision to withdraw from the course must be made in writing. If withdrawal from the course is announced between 21 and ten days prior to its commencement, 50% of the registration fee will remain due. If withdrawal from the course is announced less than ten days before its commencement, the entire registration fee is due. The number of places being limited, registrations will be considered on the basis of the date of receipt.