Setting a price that results in rationing may be optimal for a seller whose customers must make a specific investment to be able to use his product. Although rationing results in <MI>ex post<D> inefficiency, the resulting distribution of <MI>ex post<D> surplus compensates consumers for their...</d></mi></d></mi>

We examine regulation as a repeated game between a regulator and a utility facing a Markovian sequence of demands. Sunk capital would be expropriated by a regulator concerned only with the short-run interests of consumers. There exist rate of return regulatory policies supporting efficient...