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

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  • 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
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Aguirre, Iñaki & Beitia, Arantza, 2017. "Modelling countervailing incentives in adverse selection models: A synthesis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 82-89.
    2. 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.

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