Access Profit-Sharing Regulation with Information Transmission and Acquisition

The paper analyses how information acquisition and transmission issues affect the determination of the optimal access pro.t-sharing plan in regulated network industries. It considers a regulated upstream monopoly with cost uncertainty and a downstream unregulated duopoly. It will be shown that, under an access price cap regulatory mechanism, the transfer of a sufficiently high share of access profits to consumers induces an integrated upstream monopolist to transmit to his downstream rival the information privately acquired on the upstream cost and this, in turn, may negatively affect welfare. On account of these effects the optimal access profit-sharing plan will depend on the variance and shape of cost distribution, on information acquisition costs as well as on the regulator’s redistributive concerns.