IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed014/530.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dynamic Natural Monopoly Regulation: Time Inconsistency, Asymmetric Information, and Political Environments

Author

Listed:
  • Ali Yurukoglu

    (Stanford University)

  • Claire Lim

    (Cornell University)

Abstract

This paper studies time inconsistency, asymmetric information, and political ideology in natural monopoly regulation of electricity distribution companies. Empirically, more conservative political environments have higher regulated rates of return and worse operational efficiency as measured by electricity lost in distribution. Capital investment improves reliability in a cost effective manner. We estimate a dynamic game theoretic model of utility regulation featuring investment and asymmetric information. Under-investment due to time inconsistency is severe. Conservative regulators improve welfare losses due to time inconsistency, but worsen losses due to asymmetric information.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali Yurukoglu & Claire Lim, 2014. "Dynamic Natural Monopoly Regulation: Time Inconsistency, Asymmetric Information, and Political Environments," 2014 Meeting Papers 530, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed014:530
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2014/paper_530.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Growitsch & Tooraj Jamasb & Michael Pollitt, 2009. "Quality of service, efficiency and scale in network industries: an analysis of European electricity distribution," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(20), pages 2555-2570.
    2. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    3. Susan Athey & Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005. "The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(5), pages 1431-1475, September.
    4. Paul Joskow & Jean Tirole, 2007. "Reliability and competitive electricity markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 60-84, March.
    5. Patrick Bajari & C. Lanier Benkard & Jonathan Levin, 2007. "Estimating Dynamic Models of Imperfect Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(5), pages 1331-1370, September.
    6. Sanjog Misra & Harikesh Nair, 2011. "A structural model of sales-force compensation dynamics: Estimation and field implementation," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 211-257, September.
    7. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi, 2002. "Incentive Regulatory Policies: The Case of Public Transit Systems in France," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(4), pages 605-629, Winter.
    8. 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.
    9. Dal Bo, Ernesto & Rossi, Martin A., 2007. "Corruption and inefficiency: Theory and evidence from electric utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 939-962, June.
    10. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 2003. "Elected Versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1176-1206, September.
    11. Isabelle Brocas & Kitty Chan & Isabelle Perrigne, 2006. "Regulation under Asymmetric Information in Water Utilities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 62-66, May.
    12. David P. Baron & David Besanko, 1984. "Regulation, Asymmetric Information, and Auditing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 447-470, Winter.
    13. Ariel Pakes & Michael Ostrovsky & Steven Berry, 2007. "Simple estimators for the parameters of discrete dynamic games (with entry/exit examples)," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 373-399, June.
    14. Frank A. Wolak, 1994. "An Econometric Analysis of the Asymmetric Information, Regulator-Utility Interaction," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 34, pages 1-12.
    15. Koichiro Ito, 2014. "Do Consumers Respond to Marginal or Average Price? Evidence from Nonlinear Electricity Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 537-563, February.
    16. Paul Nillesen & Michael Pollitt, 2011. "Ownership Unbundling in Electricity Distribution: Empirical Evidence from New Zealand," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(1), pages 61-93, January.
    17. Formby, John P & Mishra, Banamber & Thistle, Paul D, 1995. "Public Utility Regulation and Bond Ratings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 84(1-2), pages 119-136, July.
    18. repec:adr:anecst:y:1994:i:34:p:02 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. 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.
    20. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    21. Richard J. Gilbert & David M. Newbery, 1994. "The Dynamic Efficiency of Regulatory Constitutions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(4), pages 538-554, Winter.
    22. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    23. Stephen P. Ryan, 2012. "The Costs of Environmental Regulation in a Concentrated Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 1019-1061, May.
    24. Coase, Ronald H, 1972. "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 143-149, April.
    25. Nolan McCarty & Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 2008. "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633612, December.
    26. Clare Leaver, 2009. "Bureaucratic Minimal Squawk Behavior: Theory and Evidence from Regulatory Agencies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 572-607, June.
    27. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    28. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. Todd D. Gerarden & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Gap," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1486-1525, December.
    2. Catherine Hausman & Lucija Muehlenbachs, 2019. "Price Regulation and Environmental Externalities: Evidence from Methane Leaks," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(1), pages 73-109.
    3. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi, 2017. "Economic Efficiency and Political Capture in Public Service Contracts," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 1-38, March.
    4. Richard T. Boylan, 2016. "Power to the People: Does Ownership Type Influence Electricity Service?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 441-476.

    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. Guerriero, Carmine, 2013. "The political economy of incentive regulation: Theory and evidence from US states," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 91-107.
    2. Antonio Estache & L. 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.
    3. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi & David Martimort, 2013. "The Cost of Contract Renegotiation: Evidence from the Local Public Sector," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2352-2383, October.
    4. Sun, Yanshuo & Gong, Hengye & Guo, Qianwen & Schonfeld, Paul & Li, Zhongfei, 2020. "Regulating a public transit monopoly under asymmetric cost information," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 496-522.
    5. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2006. "Modern Macroeconomics in Practice: How Theory Is Shaping Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 3-28, Fall.
    6. Ivaldi, Marc & Pouyet, Jerome, 2018. "Eliciting the regulation of an economic system: The case of the French rail industry," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 21-30.
    7. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi, 2017. "Economic Efficiency and Political Capture in Public Service Contracts," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 1-38, March.
    8. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi, 2009. "Contract choice, incentives, and political capture in public transport services," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00622963, HAL.
    9. Ingo Vogelsang, 2006. "Electricity Transmission Pricing and Performance-based Regulation," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 97-126.
    10. Philippe Gagnepain & Marc Ivaldi & David Martimort, 2010. "The renegotiation cost of public transport services contracts," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00622961, HAL.
    11. Paul L. Joskow, 2014. "Incentive Regulation in Theory and Practice: Electricity Distribution and Transmission Networks," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Regulation and Its Reform: What Have We Learned?, pages 291-344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Antonio Estache & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2009. "Toward a Theory of Regulation for Developing Countries: Following Jean-Jacques Laffont's Lead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 729-770, September.
    13. Antonio Estache & Liam Wren-Lewis, 2010. "What Anti-Corruption Policy Can Learn from Theories of Sector Regulation," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2010-033, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Philip Arestis & Alexander Mihailov, 2011. "Classifying Monetary Economics: Fields And Methods From Past To Future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 769-800, September.
    15. repec:rdg:wpaper:em-dp2007-53 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. 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.
    17. Linli Xu & Jorge M. Silva-Risso & Kenneth C. Wilbur, 2018. "Dynamic Quality Ladder Model Predictions in Nonrandom Holdout Samples," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3187-3207, July.
    18. 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.
    19. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-00710639 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Esther Duflo & Michael Greenstone & Rohini Pande & Nicholas Ryan, 2018. "The Value of Regulatory Discretion: Estimates From Environmental Inspections in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 2123-2160, November.
    21. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2014. "Market power and regulation (scientific background)," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2014-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    22. 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.

    More about this item

    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:red:sed014:530. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.