Long the nation's largest public utility, the Post Office Department lacked a regular means of ascertaining the costs of providing different mail services until 1926. The paucity of cost data, however, did not deter Congress from setting postage rates down to a fraction of a cent or from...

This paper develops a model to explain and analyze the evolution of network structure (connectivity) and design (flight frequency, aircraft size, prices) in the post-deregulation U.S. airline industry. We show that legacy carriers choice of Hub-and-Spoke networks and the emergence of low cost...

I empirically examine the impact of the liberalization and regulatory process on the Latin American telecommunications sector during the period 1990-1998. I find that privatisation and the existence of an independent regulator are positively associated with teledensity and operating efficiency...

We investigate the determinants of regulatory reforms between 1990 and 1998 in 50 developing countries. We find that the reforms are attributable to differences in the configurations of interest groups and in the political structure - in particular, the decision-making mechanisms and the...

The literature on vertical integration in markets with regulated upstream prices suggests that the integrated upstream firm might engage in non-price discrimination. Several studies provide policy recommendations derived either from case study approaches or based on theoretical modeling which...

The literature on vertical integration in markets with regulated upstream prices suggests that the integrated upstream firm might engage in non-price discrimination. Several studies provide policy recommendations derived either from case study approaches or based on theoretical modeling which...

This study provides the first empirical test of strategic interactions in the pricing decisions of regulated utilities. Since publicly owned water utilities in Sweden are governed by a cost-of-service regulation, prices in neighboring municipalities should not affect the own price other than...

To evaluate the impact of regulation on the innovativeness of firms, this study considers the unusual case of electric utilities in the state of Texas. In the current era of deregulation, the electric utility industry in Texas is unique because its regulation was relatively limited until 1975,...

We analyze a number of unstudied aspects of retail electricity competition. We first explore the implications of load profiling of consumers whose traditional meters do not allow for measurement of their real time consumption, when consumers are homogeneous up to a scaling factor. In general,...

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,...