IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/27857.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The "demand side" effect of price caps: uncertainty, imperfect competition, and ration

Author

Listed:
  • Léautier, Thomas-Olivier

Abstract

Price caps are often used by policy makers to "regulate markets". Previous analyses have focussed on the "supply side" impact of these caps, and derived the optimal price cap, which maximizes investment and welfare. This article expands the analysis to include the "demand side" impact of price caps: when prices can no longer rise, customers must be rationed to adjust demand to available supply. This yields two new findings, that contradict previous analyses. First, the welfare-maximizing cap is higher than the capacity-maximizing cap, since increasing the cap increases gross surplus when customers are rationed. Second, in somes cases, the capacity-maximizing cap leads to lower capacity and welfare than no cap. These findings underscores the importance for policy makers to examine the impact on customers when they impose price caps. Keywords: price caps, imperfect competition, rationing, investment incentives

Suggested Citation

  • Léautier, Thomas-Olivier, 2014. "The "demand side" effect of price caps: uncertainty, imperfect competition, and ration," TSE Working Papers 14-460, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
  • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:27857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/io/wp_tse_460.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Joskow & Jean Tirole, 2007. "Reliability and competitive electricity markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 60-84, March.
    2. Mougeot, Michel & Naegelen, Florence, 2005. "Hospital price regulation and expenditure cap policy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 55-72, January.
    3. Thomas-Olivier Leautier, 2014. "Is Mandating "Smart Meters" Smart?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    4. Severin Borenstein & Stephen Holland, 2005. "On the Efficiency of Competitive Electricity Markets with Time-Invariant Retail Prices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(3), pages 469-493, Autumn.
    5. Lewis Evans & Graeme Guthrie, 2012. "Price-cap regulation and the scale and timing of investment," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(3), pages 537-561, September.
    6. Lijesen, Mark G., 2007. "The real-time price elasticity of electricity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 249-258, March.
    7. Roques, Fabien A. & Savva, Nicos, 2009. "Investment under uncertainty with price ceilings in oligopolies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 507-524, February.
    8. Mougeot, Michel & Naegelen, Florence, 2005. "Hospital price regulation and expenditure cap policy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 55-72, January.
    9. Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer, 1976. "Peak Load Pricing with a Diverse Technology," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(1), pages 207-231, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Léautier, Thomas-Olivier, 2014. "The "demand side" effect of price caps: uncertainty, imperfect competition, and rationing," IDEI Working Papers 815, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    2. Thomas-Olivier Léautier, 2016. "The Visible Hand: Ensuring Optimal Investment in Electric Power Generation," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    3. Leautier, Thomas-Olivier, 2018. "On the long-term impact price caps: Investment, uncertainty, imperfect competition, and rationing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 53-95.
    4. Léautier, Thomas-Olivier, 2014. "Transmission constraints and strategic underinvestment in electric power generation," IDEI Working Papers 816, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    5. Christian Gambardella & Michael Pahle & Wolf-Peter Schill, 2016. "Do Benefits from Dynamic Tariffing Rise? Welfare Effects of Real-Time Pricing under Carbon-Tax-Induced Variable Renewable Energy Supply," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1621, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Grimm Veronika & Zöttl Gregor, 2010. "Price Regulation under Demand Uncertainty," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-34, June.
    7. Klaus Eisenack & Mathias Mier, 2019. "Peak-load pricing with different types of dispatchability," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 105-124, December.
    8. Pedro Linares & Xavier Labandeira, 2010. "Energy Efficiency: Economics And Policy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 573-592, July.
    9. Thomas-Olivier Leautier, 2014. "Is Mandating "Smart Meters" Smart?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    10. Dato, Prudence & Durmaz, Tunç & Pommeret, Aude, 2020. "Smart grids and renewable electricity generation by households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    11. Tunç Durmaz & Aude Pommeret & Ian Ridley, 2017. "Willingness to Pay for Solar Panels and Smart Grids," MITP: Mitigation, Innovation and Transformation Pathways 257879, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    12. Christian Gambardella & Michael Pahle & Wolf-Peter Schill, 2020. "Do Benefits from Dynamic Tariffing Rise? Welfare Effects of Real-Time Retail Pricing Under Carbon Taxation and Variable Renewable Electricity Supply," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(1), pages 183-213, January.
    13. Lorenczik, Stefan, 2019. "Interaction effects of market failure and CRMs in interconnected electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    14. Anette Boom & Sebastian Schwenen, 2021. "Is real-time pricing smart for consumers?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 193-213, December.
    15. Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Kallies, Anne, 2022. "A legal-economic framework of electricity markets: Assessing Australia’s transition," MPRA Paper 114191, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Paul Joskow & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Retail electricity competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 799-815, December.
    17. Elberg, Christina, 2014. "Cross-Border Effects of Capacity Mechanisms in Electricity Markets," EWI Working Papers 2014-11, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    18. Gambardella, Christian & Pahle, Michael, 2018. "Time-varying electricity pricing and consumer heterogeneity: Welfare and distributional effects with variable renewable supply," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 257-273.
    19. Oddvar Kaarboe & Luigi Siciliani, 2011. "Multi‐tasking, quality and pay for performance," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 225-238, February.
    20. Mier, Mathias, 2021. "Efficient pricing of electricity revisited," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    price caps; imperfect competition; rationing; investment incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities

    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:tse:wpaper:27857. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.