Despite all of the talk about "deregulation" of the electricity sector, a large number of non-market mechanisms have been imposed on emerging competitive wholesale and retail markets. These mechanisms include spot market price caps, operating reserve requirements, non-price rationing protocols,...

Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, as well as Twitter – the FANG companies – have transformed society with both positive and negative effects. Soaring consumer access to information, news, social networks, and entertainment has been stimulated by the ever-more ubiquitous and falling...

There can be no doubt that the FANG companies – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, as well as Twitter – have transformed society since their emergence. Like all social transformations, the changes wrought by their services have had ripple effects that are both positive and negative. On...

We argue that information asymmetries between regulators and firms increase the administrative decision costs of initiating new policies due to the costs of satisfying evidentiary or “burden of proof” requirements. We further contend that regulators with better information about regulated...

The traditionally large and sunk nature of utility investments gives rise to the possibility, if not the likelihood, of opportunistic behavior on the part of either regulators or regulated firms. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model to provide insights into this possibility, then employ...

Jarrell (1978) found that electricity prices rose in states that adopted state regulation before 1917, suggesting that regulators were "captured" by the interests of the regulated electric utilities. An alternative explanation is that state regulation more credibly protected specialized utility...

This paper discusses the California electricity market debacle and asks which lessons could be drawn from the Californian experience. It analyzes the market developments and depicts the reasons for the market meltdown. It is shown that the present situation in California may be only the calm...

Many policy-makers are currently weighing the advantages of deregulating electricity markets over more traditional regulatory methods. However, within this traditional regulatory environment many options exist. In particular, the use of incentive regulation programs in US electricity markets has...