Maximum employee work-hour restrictions are implemented to reduce accidents. However, because they decrease the stock of work-hours available to employers, they may also have detrimental effects. A quasi-experiment suggests that pilot hours-of-service reforms, which decreased the number of...

We exploit the abundance of tax changes in the airline industry after the DOT's full-disclosure rule. We determine the "effective" tax rate and analyze how passengers reacted to the tax changes. Hausman-type instruments are used to address the problems arising from endogenously determined...

Deregulation provides a natural experiment for examining how governance adapts to structural change in the business environment. We investigate the evolution of governance structure--ownership concentration, compensation policy, and board composition--in the U.S. airline industry during a 22-...

This article examines the issue of the appropriate scope of review of economic evidence enshrined in the discretionary assessments of utility regulators in the US and the UK. It advances a balance of institutional competencies approach to the question of the degree of deference owed to the...

The increasing share of renewables in the electricity system results in congestion on all network levels. To address this congestion, the EU Commission proposed that distribution network operators become responsible for local congestion management. Within this paper we analyze the institutional...

Energy efficiency in buildings is crucial for climate change mitigation. Both national and state mandates increase energy efficiency, but most energy efficiency mandates in the United States are at the state level. The federal government mandates that its new buildings be energy efficient, and...

Currently, most U.S. electricity consumers pay a constant price per kWh consumed that accounts for most of their bill. Ongoing developments in the power system increase efficiency gains that can be made from exposing consumers to widely varying wholesale spot prices. Pure spot pricing is not...

The marginal cost of electricity fluctuates hour-by-hour, yet retail customers typically face flat prices. Using data from all seven US wholesale markets and a new method to evaluate alternative rates set in advance that accounts for equilibrium price effects, we estimate efficiency gains from...