IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/3200.html

Price Regulation, Investment and the Commitment Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Levine, Paul
  • Rickman, Neil

Abstract

We consider a dynamic model of price regulation with asymmetric information where strategic delegation is available to the regulator. Firms can sink non- contractible, cost-reducing investment but regulators cannot commit to future price levels. We fully characterize the Perfect Bayesian equilibria and show that, with incentive contracts but without delegation, under- and over-investment can occur. We then show that delegation to a suitable regulator can both improve investment incentives and ameliorate the ratchet effect by credibly offering the firm future rent. Simulations indicate significant welfare gains from these two effects and that a wide range of regulatory preferences can achieve this result.

Suggested Citation

  • Levine, Paul & Rickman, Neil, 2002. "Price Regulation, Investment and the Commitment Problem," CEPR Discussion Papers 3200, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3200
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP3200
    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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Levine & Neil Rickman & Francesc Trillas, 2006. "Price Regulation and the Commitment Problem: Can Limited Capture be Beneficial?," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0106, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    2. Evans, Joanne & Levine, Paul & Trillas, Francesc, 2008. "Lobbies, delegation and the under-investment problem in regulation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-40, January.
    3. Maiorano, F. & Stern, J., 2007. "Institutions and investment in low and middle-income countries: the case of mobile communications," Working Papers 07/06, Department of Economics, City St George's, University of London.
    4. Maiorano, Federica & Stern, Jon, 2007. "Institutions and telecommunications infrastructure in low and middle-income countries: The case of mobile telephony," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 165-181, September.
    5. Antonio Estache & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2008. "Towards a Theory of Regulation for Developing Countries: Following Laffont's Lead," Working Papers ECARES 2008_018, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Brito Duarte & Pereira Pedro & Vareda João, 2013. "Investment, Dynamic Consistency and the Sectoral Regulator’s Objective," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 563-594, August.
    7. Paul Levine & Paul Levine & Jon Stern & Francesc Trillas, 2003. "Independent Utility Regulators: Lessons from Monetary Policy," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0403, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    8. Müller, Christine & Growitsch, Christian & Wissner, Matthias, 2010. "Regulierung und Investitionsanreize in der ökonomischen Theorie. IRIN Working Paper im Rahmen des Arbeitspakets: Smart Grid-gerechte Weiterentwicklung der Anreizregulierung," WIK Discussion Papers 349, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    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:3200. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.