With the recent national emphasis on energy conservation, greater attention has been focused on the ability of natural gas and electric utilities to induce customers to alter their consumption habits through pricing policies. As a consequence, a great deal of research has been done recently...

The article begins by reviewing the legislative history of lifeline (later "baseline') electric rates in California. It then evaluates the ability of the current baseline tariff to target low-income households and proposes two low-income-targeted baseline rate designs that would collect the same...

There is a general consensus that the 1990s will be a decade characterized by generation capacity shortages, at least in portions of the U.S. This poses the question “should the utility industry be committed to maintain its reserve margin at the historical level?” To answer this question, we...