IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v29y2015i1p193-206.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retrospectives: The Marginal Cost Controversy

Author

Listed:
  • Brett M. Frischmann
  • Christiaan Hogendorn

Abstract

From 1938 to 1950, there was a spirited debate about whether decreasing-average-cost industries should set prices at marginal cost, with attendant subsidies if necessary. In 1938, Harold Hotelling published a forceful and far-reaching proposal for marginal cost pricing entitled "The General Welfare in Relation to Problems of Taxation and of Railway and Utility Rates." After several years and many pages of discussion, Ronald Coase gave a name and a clear formulation to the debate in his 1946 article "The Marginal Cost Controversy." We will tell much of the story of this controversy by comparing the frameworks of Hotelling and Coase, while also bringing in other contributors and offering some thoughts about contemporary relevance. The arguments marshaled by Coase (and his contemporaries) not only succeeded in this particular debate, as we shall see, but more generally served as part of the foundation for various fields of modern economics, particularly institutional, regulatory, and public choice economics as well as law and economics. Yet the underlying issues are quite difficult to resolve, and the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments for marginal cost pricing can turn on specific elements of the industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Brett M. Frischmann & Christiaan Hogendorn, 2015. "Retrospectives: The Marginal Cost Controversy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 193-206, Winter.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:29:y:2015:i:1:p:193-206
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.29.1.193
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.29.1.193
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christiaan Hogendorn, 2012. "Spillovers and Network Neutrality," Chapters, in: Gerald R. Faulhaber & Gary Madden & Jeffrey Petchey (ed.), Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Romer, Paul, 1994. "New goods, old theory, and the welfare costs of trade restrictions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 5-38, February.
    3. Gerald R. Faulhaber & Gary Madden & Jeffrey Petchey (ed.), 2012. "Regulation and the Performance of Communication and Information Networks," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14325.
    4. Alfred E. Kahn, 1988. "The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262610523, April.
    5. Lipsey, Richard G. & Carlaw, Kenneth I. & Bekar, Clifford T., 2005. "Economic Transformations: General Purpose Technologies and Long-Term Economic Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199290895.
    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. Valentiny, Pál, 2018. "Coase-kép másképp: középpontban a közszolgáltatások [Coase otherwise: Public utilities]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(4), pages 346-381.
    2. Brett M. Frischmann & Alain Marciano & Giovanni Battista Ramello, 2019. "Retrospectives: Tragedy of the Commons after 50 Years," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 211-228, Fall.
    3. Christiaan Hogendorn & Brett Frischmann, 2017. "Infrastructure and General Purpose Technologies: A Technology Flow Framework," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2017-001, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    4. Marian W. Moszoro & Pablo T. Spiller, 2016. "Coase and the transaction cost approach to regulation," Chapters, in: Claude Ménard & Elodie Bertrand (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Ronald H. Coase, chapter 19, pages 262-275, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Alain Marciano, 2019. "Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013)," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Robert A. Cord (ed.), The Palgrave Companion to LSE Economics, chapter 0, pages 555-577, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Moszoro Marian W., 2016. "Coasean Quality of Regulated Goods," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, October.
    7. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau, 2020. "An alternative to natural monopoly," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 184-192, December.
    8. Christiaan Hogendorn & Brett Frischmann, 2020. "Infrastructure and general purpose technologies: a technology flow framework," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 469-488, December.

    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. Christiaan Hogendorn & Brett Frischmann, 2020. "Infrastructure and general purpose technologies: a technology flow framework," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 469-488, December.
    2. Cherry, Barbara A., 2014. "Historical mutilation: How misuse of 'public utility and 'natural monopoly' misdirects US telecommunications policy development," 20th ITS Biennial Conference, Rio de Janeiro 2014: The Net and the Internet - Emerging Markets and Policies 106881, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    3. Vogelsang Ingo, 2013. "The Endgame of Telecommunications Policy? A Survey," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 64(3), pages 193-270, December.
    4. Jerry Ellig & Paul LaFontaine & Wayne Leighton & Eric Ralph & Sean Sullivan, 2018. "Economics at the FCC, 2017–2018: Internet Freedom, International Broadband Pricing Comparisons, and a New Office of Economics and Analytics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(4), pages 681-707, December.
    5. Cherry, Barbara A., 2015. "Historical distortion: How misuse of "public utility and "natural monopoly" misdirects U.S. telecommunications policy development," 2015 Regional ITS Conference, Los Angeles 2015 146320, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    6. Martinez, Luis & Alvarez, Oscar Alvarez & Markendahl, Jan, 2015. "Study of the potential impact of Quality-of-Experience based services on Net Neutrality principles," 26th European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2015 127168, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    7. Benkovskis, Konstantins & Wörz, Julia, 2018. "What drives the market share changes? Price versus non-price factors," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 9-29.
    8. Kumar, Sanjesh & Singh, Baljeet, 2019. "Barriers to the international diffusion of technological innovations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-86.
    9. Grillitsch, Markus & Asheim, Björn & Fünfschilling, Lea & Kelmenson, Sophie & Lowe, Nichola & Lundquist, Karl Johan & Mahmoud, Yahia & Martynovich, Mikhail & Mattson, Pauline & Miörner, Johan & Nilsso, 2023. "Rescaling: An Analytical Lense to Study Economic and Industrial Shifts," Papers in Innovation Studies 2023/11, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    10. Kariem Soliman, 2021. "Are Industrial Robots a new GPT? A Panel Study of Nine European Countries with Capital and Quality-adjusted Industrial Robots as Drivers of Labour Productivity Growth," EIIW Discussion paper disbei307, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    11. Kym Anderson, 2005. "On the Virtues of Multilateral Trade Negotiations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(255), pages 414-438, December.
    12. Ranfeng Qiu & John Cantwell, 2018. "The international geography of general purpose technologies (GPTs) and internationalisation of corporate technological innovation," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 1-24, January.
    13. SangHyun Cheon & Dong-Wook Song & Sungjin Park, 2018. "Does more competition result in better port performance?," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 20(3), pages 433-455, September.
    14. Toru Kikuchi, 2010. "A simple model of foreign brand penetration under monopolistic competition," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 235-245, July.
    15. Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 1996. "The role of trade in technology diffusion," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 114, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    16. Wolfgang Keller, 2002. "Geographic Localization of International Technology Diffusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 120-142, March.
    17. Richard Pomfret, 2003. "Trade and Exchange Rate Policies in Formerly Centrally Planned Economies," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 585-612, April.
    18. Niklas S. Dürr & Kai Hüschelrath, 2017. "Deregulation and the determinants of network access: evidence from the German interurban bus industry," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(13), pages 950-955, July.
    19. Paul S. Segerstrom & Ignat Stepanok, 2018. "Learning How To Export," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 120(1), pages 63-92, January.
    20. Mark Knell & Simone Vannuccini, 2022. "Tools and concepts for understanding disruptive technological change after Schumpeter," Jena Economics Research Papers 2022-005, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B21 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Microeconomics
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

    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:aea:jecper:v:29:y:2015:i:1:p:193-206. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.