IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/regeco/v47y2015i2p201-217.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prices based on current cost or historical cost: How different are they?

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy Tardiff

Abstract

In 1996, The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prescribed total element long-run incremental cost (TELRIC) to determine rates incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) charge for most mandated wholesale services. TELRIC, which bases prices on a hypothetical incumbent that serves current volumes with completely new equipment, was a major departure from the predominant use of historical (or original) costs for regulated prices. The FCC made two exceptions: total service resale of local exchange services and rental of space by cable television providers and competitive local exchange carriers on poles and conduit owned by electric utilities and ILECs are based on original cost calculations. The FCC’s use of both current cost and historical cost methodologies recalls the fierce debates over whether regulated rates should be based on replacement (current) costs or original (historical costs) that preceded the US Supreme Court’s 1944 FPC v Hope decision. Parties advocating low rates favored replacement costs when equipment costs were expected to decrease, but original costs when such asset prices would be expected to increase. The Hope decision upheld the Federal Power Commission’s use of original costs, which subsequently were widely used by federal and state regulators. While rates based on current costs have, indeed, differed in the expected way from the corresponding rates based on historical costs, this paper demonstrates that (1) the large differences expected by conventional wisdom are the result of faulty application of the current cost methodology and (2) proper application substantially narrows the difference between the rates produced by the respective approaches. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Tardiff, 2015. "Prices based on current cost or historical cost: How different are they?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 201-217, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:regeco:v:47:y:2015:i:2:p:201-217
    DOI: 10.1007/s11149-014-9267-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11149-014-9267-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11149-014-9267-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mandy David M. & Sharkey William W., 2003. "Dynamic Pricing and Investment from Static Proxy Models," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 1-37, December.
    2. Jerry A. Hausman, 1997. "Valuing the Effect of Regulation on New Services in Telecommunications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1997 Micr), pages 1-54.
    3. Tardiff Timothy J., 2002. "Pricing Unbundled Network Elements and the FCC's TELRIC Rule: Economic and Modeling Issues," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 1-15, September.
    4. Weisman Dennis L., 2002. "Did The High Court Reach An Economic Low In Verizon v. FCC?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 1-16, September.
    5. Rogerson William P, 2011. "On the Relationship Between Historic Cost, Forward Looking Cost and Long Run Marginal Cost," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-31, June.
    6. Graeme Guthrie, 2006. "Regulating Infrastructure: The Impact on Risk and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 925-972, December.
    7. Makholm, Jeff D., 2012. "The Political Economy of Pipelines," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226502106, September.
    8. Alfred E. Kahn, 1988. "The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262610523, December.
    9. Makholm, Jeff D., 2012. "The Political Economy of Pipelines," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226502120, December.
    10. William Fellner, 1951. "The Influence of Market Structure on Technological Progress," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 65(4), pages 556-577.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sappington, David E.M., 2006. "On the design of input prices: Can TELRIC prices ever be optimal?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 197-215, June.
    2. Armstrong, Mark & Sappington, David E.M., 2007. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Regulation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1557-1700, Elsevier.
    3. Ingo Vogelsang, 2012. "Incentive Regulation, Investments and Technological Change," Chapters, in: Gerald R. Faulhaber & Gary Madden & Jeffrey Petchey (ed.), Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Guthrie, Graeme & Small, John & Wright, Julian, 2006. "Pricing access: Forward-looking versus backward-looking cost rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1767-1789, October.
    5. Jean-Michel Glachant & Michelle Hallack & Miguel Vazquez, 2014. "Gas network and market diversity in the US, the EU and Australia: A story of network access rights," RSCAS Working Papers 2014/33, European University Institute.
    6. David E. M Sappington, 2005. "On the Irrelevance of Input Prices for Make-or-Buy Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1631-1638, December.
    7. Glachant, Jean-Michel & Hallack, Michelle & Vazquez, Miguel, 2014. "Gas network and market “à la Carte”: Identifying the fundamental choices," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 238-245.
    8. Miguel Vazquez & Michelle Hallack & Jean-Michel Glachant, 2013. "Gas Network and Market: à la carte?," RSCAS Working Papers 2013/73, European University Institute.
    9. Guthrie, Graeme, 2020. "Regulation, welfare, and the risk of asset stranding," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 273-287.
    10. Keizo Mizuno & Ichiro Yoshino, 2015. "Overusing a bypass under cost-based access regulation: underinvestment with spillovers," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 29-57, February.
    11. Palcic, Dónal & Reeves, Eoin, 2013. "Private equity leveraged buyouts in European telecoms: The case of Eircom," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 573-582.
    12. Inderst, Roman & Peitz, Martin, 2014. "Investment under uncertainty and regulation of new access networks," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 28-41.
    13. Rogerson William P, 2011. "On the Relationship Between Historic Cost, Forward Looking Cost and Long Run Marginal Cost," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-31, June.
    14. ABADA, Ibrahim & EHRENMANN, Andreas & SMEERS, Yves, 2014. "Endogenizing long-term contracts in gas market models," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014036, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    15. Evans, Lewis T. & Guthrie, Graeme A., 2005. "Risk, price regulation, and irreversible investment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 109-128, February.
    16. Guthrie, Graeme, 2006. "Regulating Infrastructure: The Impact on Risk and Investment," Working Paper Series 18946, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    17. Miguel Vazquez & Michelle Hallack, 2013. "Interaction between gas and electricity market-based trading in the short run," RSCAS Working Papers 2013/42, European University Institute.
    18. Lewis Evans & Graeme Guthrie, 2006. "Incentive Regulation of Prices When Costs are Sunk," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 239-264, May.
    19. Tomaso Duso, 2005. "Lobbying and regulation in a political economy: Evidence from the U.S. cellular industry," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 251-276, March.
    20. Chi Kong Chyong and David M. Reiner, 2015. "Economics and Politics of Shale Gas in Europe," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regulatory costs; Current cost; Original cost; Wholesale inputs; L51; L96; L97; L98;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications
    • L97 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Utilities: General
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:regeco:v:47:y:2015:i:2:p:201-217. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.