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The design of regulation that is both "effective" and "ethical" requires understanding the objectives of the stakeholders and following clear-cut normative criteria. While the objective of private agents is often plain, that of public corporations is less so. We argue that the objective of utilities operating over several jurisdictions should be made explicit, whether it is a "communitarian" one, whereby outside operations merely serve as instruments to increase the welfare of the home community, or a "cosmopolitan" one, where the objective is to serve as many users as possibleboth at home and abroad at the lowest rate. Whatever the perspective, we claim that it would be detrimental to a priori forbid public utilities from seeking profits outside their home jurisdiction. Rather, regulators should focus on how these benefits are distributed among stakeholders. A special caveat is to be noted regarding risk-taking. Overall, we argue that neither isolationism nor "laissez-faire" are decently defensible. A lesson of the analysis is that although apparently unrelated, geographical, social and cultural factors should enter in the very definition of public mandates.
