IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/6142.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Allocative Cost of Price Ceilings: Lessons to be Learned from the US Residential Market for Natural Gas

Author

Listed:
  • Kilian, Lutz
  • Davis, Lucas W

Abstract

Following a Supreme Court decision in 1954, natural gas markets in the U.S. were subject to 35 years of intensive federal regulation. Several studies have measured the deadweight loss from the price ceilings that were imposed during this period. This paper concentrates on an additional component of welfare loss that is rarely discussed. In particular, when there is excess demand for a good such as natural gas for which secondary markets do not exist, an additional welfare loss occurs when the good is not allocated to the buyers who value it the most. We quantify the overall size of this allocative cost, its evolution during the post-war period, and its geographical distribution, and we highlight implications of our analysis for the regulation of other markets. Using a household-level, discrete-continuous model of natural gas demand we estimate that the allocative cost averaged $8.1 billion annually in the U.S. residential market for natural gas during 1950-2000, effectively doubling previous estimates of the total welfare losses from natural gas regulation. We find that these allocative costs were borne disproportionately by households in the Northeast, Midwest, and South Atlantic states. Costs were largest in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts with 70% of all costs borne by the ten states affected most.

Suggested Citation

  • Kilian, Lutz & Davis, Lucas W, 2007. "The Allocative Cost of Price Ceilings: Lessons to be Learned from the US Residential Market for Natural Gas," CEPR Discussion Papers 6142, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6142
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP6142
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. Jean-Thomas Bernard & Denis Bolduc & Donald Belanger, 1996. "Quebec Residential Electricity Demand: A Microeconometric Approach," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 92-113, February.
    2. Nesbakken, Runa, 2001. " Energy Consumption for Space Heating: A Discrete-Continuous Approach," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(1), pages 165-184, March.
    3. Paul W. MacAvoy & Robert S. Pindyck, 1973. "Alternative Regulatory Policies for Dealing with the Natural Gas Shortage," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 4(2), pages 454-498, Autumn.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2003. "The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1027-1046, September.
    5. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521766555, January.
    6. W. Kip Viscusi & Joseph E. Harrington & John M. Vernon, 2005. "Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, 4th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 4, volume 1, number 026222075x, December.
    7. Fred Mannering & Clifford Winston, 1985. "A Dynamic Empirical Analysis of Household Vehicle Ownership and Utilization," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 215-236, Summer.
    8. Dubin, Jeffrey A & McFadden, Daniel L, 1984. "An Econometric Analysis of Residential Electric Appliance Holdings and Consumption," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 345-362, March.
    9. Sweeney, James L, 1984. "The Response of Energy Demand to Higher Prices: What Have We Learned?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 31-37, May.
    10. Jeffrey A. Dubin & Allen K. Miedema & Ram V. Chandran, 1986. "Price Effects of Energy-Efficient Technologies: A Study of Residential Demand for Heating and Cooling," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(3), pages 310-325, Autumn.
    11. MacAvoy, Paul W, 1971. "The Regulation-Induced Shortage of Natural Gas," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 167-199, April.
    12. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, 1998. "The Effects of the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Standards in the US," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 1-33, March.
    13. Peter C. Reiss & Matthew W. White, 2005. "Household Electricity Demand, Revisited," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 853-883.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luttmer Erzo F.P., 2007. "Does the Minimum Wage Cause Inefficient Rationing?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-42, October.
    2. Kilian, Lutz & Edelstein, Paul, 2007. "Retail Energy Prices and Consumer Expenditures," CEPR Discussion Papers 6255, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. Lucas W. Davis & Lutz Kilian, 2011. "The Allocative Cost of Price Ceilings in the U.S. Residential Market for Natural Gas," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(2), pages 212-241.
    2. Lucas W. Davis, 2008. "Durable goods and residential demand for energy and water: evidence from a field trial," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 530-546, June.
    3. Damette, Olivier & Delacote, Philippe & Lo, Gaye Del, 2018. "Households energy consumption and transition toward cleaner energy sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 751-764.
    4. Takahiko Kiso, 2019. "Evaluating New Policy Instruments of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards: Footprint, Credit Transferring, and Credit Trading," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(2), pages 445-476, February.
    5. Nicholas Rivers and Leslie Shiell, 2016. "Free-Riding on Energy Efficiency Subsidies: the Case of Natural Gas Furnaces in Canada," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    6. Antonio M. Bento & Lawrence H. Goulder & Mark R. Jacobsen & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased US Gasoline Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 667-699, June.
    7. Michael Hanemann & Xavier Labandeira & José M. Labeaga, 2013. "Energy Demand for Heating: Short Run and Long Run," Working Papers 07-2013, Economics for Energy.
    8. Fang, Hao Audrey, 2008. "A discrete-continuous model of households' vehicle choice and usage, with an application to the effects of residential density," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 736-758, November.
    9. Çetinkaya, Murat & Başaran, Alparslan A. & Bağdadioğlu, Necmiddin, 2015. "Electricity reform, tariff and household elasticity in Turkey," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 79-85.
    10. Chugh, Randy & Cropper, Maureen, 2017. "The welfare effects of fuel conservation policies in a dual-fuel car market: Evidence from India," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 244-261.
    11. Hache, Emmanuel & Leboullenger, Déborah & Mignon, Valérie, 2017. "Beyond average energy consumption in the French residential housing market: A household classification approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 82-95.
    12. Dorothée Charlier & Sondès Kahouli, 2018. "Fuel poverty and residential energy demand: how fuel-poor households react to energy price fluctuations," Post-Print halshs-01957771, HAL.
    13. Don Fullerton & Li Gan & Miwa Hattori, 2015. "A model to evaluate vehicle emission incentive policies in Japan," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(1), pages 79-108, January.
    14. Dorothee Charlier and Sondes Kahouli, 2019. "From Residential Energy Demand to Fuel Poverty: Income-induced Non-linearities in the Reactions of Households to Energy Price Fluctuations," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    15. West, Sarah E., 2004. "Distributional effects of alternative vehicle pollution control policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 735-757, March.
    16. Lawrence Goulder, 2007. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased U.S. Gasoline Taxes," Discussion Papers 07-009, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    17. Vesterberg, Mattias, 2016. "The hourly income elasticity of electricity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 188-197.
    18. Frontuto Vito, 2012. "Residential Energy Demand: a Multiple Discrete-Continuous Extreme Value Model using Italian Expenditure Data," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201203, University of Turin.
    19. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2018. "A discrete/continuous choice model on a nonconvex budget set," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 89-113, February.
    20. Ruokamo, Enni, 2016. "Household preferences of hybrid home heating systems – A choice experiment application," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 224-237.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Allocative cost; Deadweight loss; Natural gas; Price ceiling; Regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D45 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Rationing; Licensing
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L71 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:6142. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.