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| Registros recuperados: 16 | |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.; Palmer, Karen L.; Martinez, Salvador A.. |
| Electricity is one of the last U.S. industries in which competition is replacing regulation. We briefly review the technology for producing and delivering power, the history of electricity policy, and recent state and international experience. We then outline the major questions facing policymakers as they decide whether, when, and how to implement restructuring. We conclude with some thoughts on the California electricity crisis and other political controversies. Although the California experience has come to define what it means for electricity markets to fail, most of the problems it raised are among those we know how to solve or prevent. The still unresolved make-or-break issue remains whether the cooperation necessary to maintain reliability is... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Regulation; Deregulation; Public Economics; L51; L94; D4. |
| Ano: 2001 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10508 |
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| Boyd, James; Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| The paper evaluates the desirability of compensation for regulatory takings. To do so, we describe a public choice model in which regulators' decisions are influenced by competing political interests. We consider how the political incentives of landowners, environmentalists, and taxpayers are affected by alternative compensation rules and in turn describe the regulatory decisions made in such a pluralistic political environment. Modeling the regulator's incentives in this way leads to the conclusion that compensation should not be paid unless environmentalists and property owners have unequal influence politically. Moreover, the model has several counter-intuitive implications when political influence is not balanced. For instance, if environmentalists are... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Regulatory takings; Compensation; Political economy; Environmental Economics and Policy; K11; D72; L51. |
| Ano: 1996 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10702 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.; Boyd, James. |
| This paper explores ways in which economic analysis can help resolve the stranded cost controversy that has arisen in debates over electricity market deregulation. "Stranded costs" are costs electric utilities will not recover as power markets move from protected monopolies to an open, competitive environment. The paper begins with a description of the stranded cost problem, its magnitude, and the prominent arguments for and against recovery. We then turn to an analysis of contracts in order to understand whether there is, or should be, a legal duty to compensate utility shareholders for unrecovered costs. The paper also argues that efficient approaches to electricity deregulation will rely on more than an analysis of contracts. In particular, the politics... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Stranded costs; Deregulation; Takings; Electric utilities; Contracts; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; L43; L94; K12. |
| Ano: 1996 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10688 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Demand-side management programs comprise subsidies from franchised electric utilities for the purchase of high-efficiency appliances; e.g., air conditioners. Competition in power generation threatens the viability of these programs. However, it should also reduce the warrant for them. Under regulation, the justification for such programs depends, somewhat paradoxically, on below marginal-cost pricing. Eliminating regulation should permit pricing flexibility to discourage excessive on-peak energy use. It should also eliminate the assurance of returns that may have encouraged overbuilding of generation capacity. Entrants and incumbent utilities should find it easier to offer "energy services," i.e., to bundle electricity with appliances, if consumers are too... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Energy conservation; Regulatory policy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; L51; L94; Q48. |
| Ano: 1998 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10615 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Restructuring the electricity market may secure efficiencies by moving away from cost-of-service regulation, with typically (but not necessarily) time-invariant prices, and allowing prices to reflect how costs change. Charging "real time" prices requires that electricity use be measured according to when one uses it. Arguments that such real-time metering should be a policy objective promoted by subsidizing meters or delaying restructuring until meters are installed, require more than these potential benefits. They require positive externalities to imply that too few meters would be installed through private transactions. Real-time metering presents no systematic externalities when utilities must serve peak period users, and may present negative... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Real-time metering; Electricity restructuring; Deregulation; Rationing; Externalities; Industrial Organization; D45; D62; L11; L94. |
| Ano: 2002 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10718 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| We examine the suggestion that if consumers in sufficient numbers are willing to pay the premium to have power generated using low-emission technologies, tax or permit policies become less necessary or stringent. While there are implementation difficulties with this proposal, our purpose is more fundamental: can economics make sense of using preferences as a regulatory instrument? If"green" preferences are exogenously given, to what extent can or should they be regarded as a substitute for other policies? Even with green preferences, production and consumption of polluting goods continues to impose social costs not borne in the market. Moreover, if green preferences are regarded as a policy instrument, the "no policy" baseline would require a problematic... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Environmental regulation; Preference change; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q2; B4; D6. |
| Ano: 2001 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10787 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Following recent telecommunications mergers, local (mostly municipal and county) governments and the federal government are fighting over who should determine whether cable television systems must make their facilities available to unaffiliated providers of high-speed ("broadband") Internet service. This intergovernmental dispute is only the latest in a series of such clashes regarding competition and communications policy. A brief review of the policy suggests that substantively, local open-access requirements are not yet warranted. However, the economics of federalism, primarily that the relevant markets are local, indicates that local governments should have the right to choose these policies, perhaps erroneously. Federal preemption could prevent... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Federalism; Internet; Regulation; Vertical integration; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; H1; L5; L1. |
| Ano: 2001 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10823 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Lower prices for polluting goods will increase their sales and the pollution that results from their production or use. Conventional intuition suggests that this relationship implies a greater need for environmental policy when prices of "dirty" goods fall. But the economic inefficiency resulting overproduction of polluting goods may fall, not rise, as the cost of producing those goods falls. While lower costs exacerbate overproduction, they also reduce the difference between private benefit and the total social cost--the sum of private and external costs--associated with that overproduction. We derive a test, based on readily observed or estimated parameters for conditions in which the latter effect outweighs the former. In such cases, making a dirty good... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Environment; Regulatory policy; Externalities; Electricity restructuring; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q28; L51; L94. |
| Ano: 1999 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10776 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Reserve requirements in electricity markets may get each producer to internalize the cost of grid-wide blackouts it might cause if unable to meet consumer demand. Markets for how such capacity might be procured have been studied. Less examined is how the costs of reserve capacity are covered. "Who pays" depends on how requirements are designed. If each producer has to provide peak capacity available to a grid operator at a below-spot price, requirements will increase volatility-that is, the gap between baseload and marginal peak prices. Requirements based on energy sales act as a tax on baseload to subsidize peak, reducing volatility. Finally, if requirements are designed to ensure that extreme-peak energy is available without scarcity rents, baseload... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Capacity requirements; Reserve requirements; Electricity generation; Utility regulation; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; L94; L51; H22. |
| Ano: 2003 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10569 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Allegations of market power in wholesale electricity sales are typically tested using price-cost margins. Such tests are inherently suspect in markets-such as electricity-that are subject to capacity constraints. In such markets, prices can vary with demand while quantity, and thus cost measure, remain fixed. Erroneous conclusions are more likely when the proxy for marginal cost is the average operating cost of the marginal plant. Measured this way, high Lerner indexes are consistent with competitive behavior. Using this proxy to cap wholesale prices, as the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has proposed, would discourage entry by making it impossible for peak power suppliers to recover capital costs. The wholesale electricity sector may be... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Market power; Electricity; Peak load pricing; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; D42; L11; L51; L94. |
| Ano: 2002 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10804 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Competition policy has become more prominent while the thinking underlying those policies has undergone substantial revision. We survey advances in antitrust economics and the economics of regulation. Increasing reliance on non-cooperative game theory as a foundation for antitrust has led to rethinking conventional approaches. We review some of these contributions in the context of mergers, vertical restraints, and competition in "network industries." Turning to regulation, we review standard rationales and identify some major contemporary refinements, with examples of the motives behind them and their application. After brief thoughts on privatization, we conclude with suggestions on design and implementation, with some observations on whether these... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Antitrust; Regulation; Competition policy; Industrial Organization. |
| Ano: 2000 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10716 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Residential consumers remain reluctant to choose new electricity suppliers. Even the most successful jurisdictions, four U.S. states and other countries, have had to adopt extensive consumer education procedures that serve largely to confirm that choosing electricity suppliers is daunting. Electricity is not unique in this respect; numerous studies find that consumers are generally reluctant to switch brands, even when they are well-informed about product characteristics. If consumers prefer not to choose, opening regulated markets can reduce welfare, even for some consumers who do switch, as the incumbent can exploit this preference by raising price above the formerly regulated level. Policies to open markets might be successful even if limited to... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Electricity markets; Deregulation; Consumer choice; Residential markets; Consumer/Household Economics; L94; L51; D11; B40. |
| Ano: 2005 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10573 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Jurisdictions have overlapping authority regarding electricity restructuring when a national authority and subnational regional governments-for example, states-both have a say. The initial sections of the paper review the division of regulatory authority over electricity markets in the United States, constitutional provisions, recent developments, and how federalist concerns have been manifested in antitrust and telecommunications. Justifications for using private markets rather than central governments suggest an efficiency approach to dividing authority, based on information, cross-border externalities, and agency, that is, the ability of a government to reflect the political preferences of its constituents. The goal is not to impose a "right" policy... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Federalism; Regulatory policy; Political Economy; H11; L94; L51; H77. |
| Ano: 2003 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10802 |
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| Brennan, Timothy J.. |
| Widespread concern over transmission capacity requires theoretical support to infer inadequacy from observed trends indicating reductions in the ratio of transmission to generation capacity over time. If integrated utilities had been regulated with allowed returns exceeding capital costs, transmission generation ratios would have been excessive, and observed trends might be a correction. However, numerous commentators claim that post-restructuring transmission rates have been too low, with NIMBY also discouraging investment. We model the possibility that inadequate separation between generation and transmission may result in reduced investment, in order to preserve incumbent market power in generation. However, consideration of transmission price caps and... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Electricity transmission; Regulation; Deregulation; Vertical integration; Environmental Economics and Policy; L94; L51; L22. |
| Ano: 2005 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10723 |
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| Registros recuperados: 16 | |
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