IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ste/nystbu/18-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incentive Regulation: Evidence From German Electricity Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Hellwig
  • Dominik Schober
  • Luis Cabral

Abstract

We propose a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach to estimate the impact of incentives on cost reduction. We show theoretically, and estimate empirically, that German electricity distribution system operators (DSOs) pile up more costs in the year used to determine future prices when subject to a lower-powered regulation mechanism. The difference is particularly significant (about 10% of total cost) for firms in the upper quartile of the efficiency distribution, a pattern which is consistent with the pooling of types under the threat of ratcheting. In light of heterogeneous network reinforcement across DSOs due to local wind and solar power expansion, cost inflation will particularly hit already hard-struck DSOs’ customers.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Hellwig & Dominik Schober & Luis Cabral, 2018. "Incentive Regulation: Evidence From German Electricity Networks," Working Papers 18-03, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ste:nystbu:18-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://luiscabral.net/economics/workingpapers/HellwigSchoberCabral_20180210.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Majumdar, Sumit K, 1997. "Incentive Regulation and Productive Efficiency in the U.S. Telecommunications Industry," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(4), pages 547-576, October.
    2. M.E. Beesley & S.C. Littlechild, 1989. "The Regulation of Privatized Monopolies in the United Kingdom," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 20(3), pages 454-472, Autumn.
    3. 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.
    4. PER AGRELL & Peter Bogetoft & Jørgen Tind, 2005. "DEA and Dynamic Yardstick Competition in Scandinavian Electricity Distribution," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 173-201, May.
    5. Andrei Shleifer, 1985. "A Theory of Yardstick Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 319-327, Autumn.
    6. Lechner, Michael, 2011. "The Estimation of Causal Effects by Difference-in-Difference Methods," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 165-224, November.
    7. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias, 2009. "Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(3).
    8. Braeutigam, Ronald R & Panzar, John C, 1993. "Effects of the Change from Rate-of-Return to Price-Cap Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 191-198, May.
    9. Greenstein, Shane & McMaster, Susan & Spiller, Pablo T, 1995. "The Effect of Incentive Regulation on Infrastructure Modernization: Local Exchange Companies' Deployment of Digital Technology," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(2), pages 187-236, Summer.
    10. Gary Biglaiser & Michael Riordan, 2000. "Dynamics of Price Regulation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 744-767, Winter.
    11. Ai, Chunrong & Sappington, David E M, 2002. "The Impact of State Incentive Regulation on the U.S. Telecommunications Industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 133-159, September.
    12. Cullmann, Astrid & Nieswand, Maria, 2016. "Regulation and investment incentives in electricity distribution: An empirical assessment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 192-203.
    13. David M. Newbery & Michael G. Pollitt, 1997. "The Restructuring and Privatisation of Britain's CEGB—Was It Worth It?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 269-303, September.
    14. Joskow Paul L., 2008. "Incentive Regulation and Its Application to Electricity Networks," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(4), pages 1-14, December.
    15. Graeme Guthrie, 2006. "Regulating Infrastructure: The Impact on Risk and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 925-972, December.
    16. Kridel, Donald J & Sappington, David E M & Weisman, Dennis L, 1996. "The Effects of Incentive Regulation in the Telecommunications Industry: A Survey," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 269-306, May.
    17. Crew, Michael A & Kleindorfer, Paul R, 1996. "Incentive Regulation in the United Kingdom and the United States: Some Lessons," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 211-225, May.
    18. Crew, Michael A & Kleindorfer, Paul R, 2002. "Regulatory Economics: Twenty Years of Progress?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 5-22, January.
    19. Stephen G. Donald & Kevin Lang, 2007. "Inference with Difference-in-Differences and Other Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 221-233, May.
    20. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    21. Vogelsang, Ingo, 2002. "Incentive Regulation and Competition in Public Utility Markets: A 20-Year Perspective," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 5-27, July.
    22. Newbery, D.M. & Pollitt, M.G., 1996. "The Restructuring and Privatisation of the CEGB: Was It Worth It?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9607, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    23. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    24. David Sappington & Dennis Weisman, 2010. "Price cap regulation: what have we learned from 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 227-257, December.
    25. Per Agrell & Peter Bogetoft & Martin Koller & Urs Trinkner, 2014. "Effizienzvergleich für Verteilernetzbetreiber Strom 2013," Studies and Reports, Swiss Economics, pages 1-99, March.
    26. Graeme Guthrie, 2006. "Regulating Infrastructure: The Impact on Risk and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 925-972, December.
    27. Cabral, Luis M B & Riordan, Michael H, 1989. "Incentives for Cost Reduction under Price Cap Regulation," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 93-102, June.
    28. Meeusen, Wim & van den Broeck, Julien, 1977. "Efficiency Estimation from Cobb-Douglas Production Functions with Composed Error," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 435-444, June.
    29. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    30. Seo, Daigyo & Shin, Jonghyup, 2011. "The impact of incentive regulation on productivity in the US telecommunications industry: A stochastic frontier approach," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 3-11, March.
    31. Carlo Cambini & Laura Rondi, 2010. "Incentive regulation and investment: evidence from European energy utilities," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 1-26, August.
    32. George E. Battese, 1997. "A Note On The Estimation Of Cobb‐Douglas Production Functions When Some Explanatory Variables Have Zero Values," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1‐3), pages 250-252, January.
    33. Liston, Catherine, 1993. "Price-Cap versus Rate-of-Return Regulation," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 25-48, March.
    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. Sven Heim & Bastian Krieger & Mario Liebensteiner, 2020. "Unbundling, Regulation, and Pricing: Evidence from Electricity Distribution," The Energy Journal, , vol. 41(1_suppl), pages 93-118, June.
    2. Oguz, Fuat, 2020. "Complexity of Electricity Markets and their Regulation: Insights from the Turkish Experience," MPRA Paper 99261, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Nolting, Lars & Schuller, Vanessa & Gaumnitz, Felix & Praktiknjo, Aaron, 2019. "Incentivizing timely investments in electrical grids: Analysis of the amendment of the German distribution grid regulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 754-763.

    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. Hellwig, Michael & Schober, Dominik & Cabral, Luís, 2020. "Low-powered vs high-powered incentives: Evidence from German electricity networks," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. 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.
    3. Avdasheva, Svetlana & Orlova, Yulia, 2020. "Effects of long-term tariff regulation on investments under low credibility of rules: Rate-of-return and price cap in Russian electricity grids," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    4. Ingo Vogelsang, 2012. "Incentive Regulation, Investments and Technological Change," Chapters, in: Gerald R. Faulhaber & Gary Madden & Jeffrey Petchey (ed.), Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Laura Abrardi & Cambini Carlo & Rondi Laura, 2018. "The Impact of Regulation on Utilities’ Investments: A Survey and New Evidence from the Energy Industry," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 41-62, March.
    6. Carlo Cambini & Laura Rondi, 2010. "Incentive regulation and investment: evidence from European energy utilities," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 1-26, August.
    7. Dennis L. Weisman, 2019. "The power of regulatory regimes reexamined," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 125-148, December.
    8. Nykamp, Stefan & Andor, Mark & Hurink, Johann L., 2012. "‘Standard’ incentive regulation hinders the integration of renewable energy generation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 222-237.
    9. Dennis L. Weisman, 2023. "Measuring the Power of Regulatory Regimes," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 62(1), pages 19-32, February.
    10. Schober, Dominik & Weber, Christoph, 2015. "Refinancing under yardstick regulation with investment cycles: The case of long-lived electricity network assets," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-065, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Dominik Schober, 2013. "Refinancing under Yardstick Regulation with Investment Cycles–The Case of Long-Lived Electricity Network Assets," EWL Working Papers 1321, University of Duisburg-Essen, Chair for Management Science and Energy Economics, revised Jun 2013.
    12. David Sappington & Dennis Weisman, 2010. "Price cap regulation: what have we learned from 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 227-257, December.
    13. Francisca Bremberger & Carlo Cambini & Klaus Gugler & Laura Rondi, 2013. "Dividend Policy in Regulated Firms," RSCAS Working Papers 2013/53, European University Institute.
    14. Cullmann, Astrid & Nieswand, Maria, 2015. "Regulation and Investment Incentives in Electricity Distribution," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113090, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Oliver, Matthew E., 2019. "Pricing flexibility under rate-of-return regulation: Effects on network infrastructure investment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 150-161.
    16. 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.
    17. J.A. den Hertog, 2010. "Review of economic theories of regulation," Working Papers 10-18, Utrecht School of Economics.
    18. Noel Uri, 2003. "The Effect of Incentive Regulation in Telecommunications in the United States," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 169-191, May.
    19. Stronzik, Marcus, 2013. "Investitions- und Innovationsanreize: Ein Vergleich zwischen Revenue Cap und Yardstick Competition," WIK Discussion Papers 379, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    20. Weisman, Dennis L., 2002. "Is there 'Hope' for price cap regulation?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 349-370, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:ste:nystbu:18-03. 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: Amanda Murphy The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Amanda Murphy to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ednyuus.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.