The impact of technical progress on the evolution of the concept of public service.

Summary This thesis focuses on the impact of technological change on the punctual reshaping of industrial organization in networked industries. Technical progress, which is present in different ways in the public utility industries of telecommunications and energy, has allowed the emergence of these economic sectors of obvious interest to the community, in the form of monopolized industries with strong state involvement. For some years now, it has been helping to shape the organizational configurations and regulatory procedures that preceded the liberalization reforms that Europe is undergoing. Technical progress is bringing new technologies, new products and, by the same token, new collective needs to the fore. It is therefore undoubtedly helping to revitalize the concept of public service and to update its content. In the current context of trans-regulation, the "capacity for innovation" is becoming the key and the condition for the survival of public services, and influences the paths of their evolution. Articulated around four intertwined chapters, of theoretical and practical scope, this work aims to show the role and place of technical progress in the reality of three services of general interest, in this case, telecoms, electricity and natural gas.