IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jpbect/v6y2004i5p693-706.html

Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Demand: Costly Public Funds and the Value of Private Information

Author

Listed:
  • Iñaki Aguirre
  • Arantza Beitia

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the optimal regulation policy when the regulated firm has better information concerning the market demand than the regulator. We show that introducing a cost on public funds into the Planner's objective function does not lead to qualitative results similar to those obtained by introducing distributional considerations. In particular we show that under constant marginal cost the full information policy is not implementable and that the optimal regulatory policy results in informational rents. The social value of private information and the firm's informational rents are both increasing functions of the cost of the public funds.

Suggested Citation

  • Iñaki Aguirre & Arantza Beitia, 2004. "Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Demand: Costly Public Funds and the Value of Private Information," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(5), pages 693-706, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:6:y:2004:i:5:p:693-706
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9779.2004.00187.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2004.00187.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2004.00187.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guesnerie, Roger & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1984. "A complete solution to a class of principal-agent problems with an application to the control of a self-managed firm," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 329-369, December.
    2. Ballard, Charles L & Shoven, John B & Whalley, John, 1985. "General Equilibrium Computations of the Marginal Welfare Costs of Taxes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 128-138, March.
    3. Baron, David P., 1989. "Design of regulatory mechanisms and institutions," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 24, pages 1347-1447, Elsevier.
    4. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
    5. Myerson, Roger B, 1979. "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 61-73, January.
    6. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Using Cost Observation to Regulate Firms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 614-641, June.
    7. B. Caillaud & R. Guesnerie & P. Rey & J. Tirole, 1988. "Government Intervention in Production and Incentives Theory: A Review of Recent Contributions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 1-26, Spring.
    8. Michael H. Riordan, 1984. "On Delegating Price Authority to a Regulated Firm," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 108-115, Spring.
    9. Partha Dasgupta & Peter Hammond & Eric Maskin, 1979. "The Implementation of Social Choice Rules: Some General Results on Incentive Compatibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 46(2), pages 185-216.
    10. Armstrong, Mark, 1999. "Optimal Regulation with Unknown Demand and Cost Functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 196-215, February.
    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. Dan Wang & Peng Hao & Jiancheng Wang, 2023. "Quantities vs. prices: monopoly regulation without transfer under asymmetric demand information," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 177-205, June.
    2. Aguirre, Iñaki & Beitia, Arantza, 2017. "Modelling countervailing incentives in adverse selection models: A synthesis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 82-89.

    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. 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.
    2. Aguirre, Iñaki & Beitia, Arantza, 2017. "Modelling countervailing incentives in adverse selection models: A synthesis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 82-89.
    3. Ismail Saglam, 2024. "The Bayesian approach to monopoly regulation after 40 years," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 108-136, June.
    4. repec:ehu:ikerla:14765 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sumit K. Majumdar, 2010. "Incentive Compatible Mechanism Design And Firm Growth: Experiences From Telecommunications Sector Regulation," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 81(3), pages 357-387, September.
    6. Ana Pinto Borges & João Correia‐Da‐Silva, 2011. "Using Cost Observation To Regulate A Manager Who Has A Preference For Empire‐Building," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(1), pages 29-44, January.
    7. Christian M. Ernst, 2003. "The interaction between cost‐management and learning for major surgical procedures – lessons from asymmetric information," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(3), pages 199-215, March.
    8. Ana Borges & João Correia-da-Silva & Didier Laussel, 2014. "Regulating a manager whose empire-building preferences are private information," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 105-130, March.
    9. B. Caillaud & R. Guesnerie & P. Rey & J. Tirole, 1988. "Government Intervention in Production and Incentives Theory: A Review of Recent Contributions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 1-26, Spring.
    10. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1994. "The New Economics of Regulation Ten Years After," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 507-537, May.
    11. Dan Wang & Peng Hao & Jiancheng Wang, 2023. "Quantities vs. prices: monopoly regulation without transfer under asymmetric demand information," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 177-205, June.
    12. Joachim Bertsch & Simeon Hagspiel, 2018. "Regulation of non-marketed outputs and substitutable inputs," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 174-205, April.
    13. Di Corato, Luca & Moretto, Michele, 2026. "Dynamic Adverse Selection with Flow Limited Liability: A Closed-Form Approach to Price Regulation," FEEM Working Papers 396239, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    14. Feng, Hongli, 2007. "Green payments and dual policy goals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 323-335, November.
    15. Jacques LAWARREE, 1990. "Incitations Manageriales Dans Les Entreprises Publiques," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 469-488, October.
    16. Joachim Bertsch & Simeon Hagspiel, 2015. "Regulation of non-marketed outputs and substitutable inputs," EWI Working Papers 2015-6, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    17. Dionne, G. & Doherty, N., 1991. "Adverse Selection In Insurance Markets: A Selective Survey," Cahiers de recherche 9105, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    18. Wanyi Dai Li & Itai Ashlagi & Irene Lo, 2023. "Simple and Approximately Optimal Contracts for Payment for Ecosystem Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(12), pages 7821-7837, December.
    19. Strausz, Roland, 2006. "Deterministic versus stochastic mechanisms in principal-agent models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 306-314, May.
    20. Shouqiang Wang & Peng Sun & Francis de Véricourt, 2016. "Inducing Environmental Disclosures: A Dynamic Mechanism Design Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 371-389, April.
    21. Reiss, Peter C. & Wolak, Frank A., 2003. "Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples from Industrial Organization," Research Papers 1831, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.

    More about this item

    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:bla:jpbect:v:6:y:2004:i:5:p:693-706. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/apettea.html .

    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.