The distribution grid for delivering electricity to the user has been paid for as part of the charge per kilowatt-hour that covers the cost of the energy itself. Conservation advocates have promoted the adoption of policies that “decouple” electric distribution company revenues or profits from how much electricity goes through the lines. Their motivation is that usage-based pricing leads utilities to encourage use and discourages conservation. Because decoupling divorces profits from conduct, it runs against the dominant finding in regulatory economics in the last twenty years – that incentive-based regulation outperforms rate-of-return. Even if distribution costs are independent of use, some usage charges can be efficient. Price-cap regulation may distort utility incentives to inform consumers about energy efficiency – getting more performance from less electricity. Utilities will subsidize efficiency investments, but only when prices are too low. Justifying policies to subsidize energy efficiency requires either prices that are too low or consumers who are ignorant.
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TPI Study to Examine Fiscal Benefits of Highly Skilled Immigrants
The Technology Policy Institute announced today a new research project that will delineate the budget and economic benefits provided by highly skilled immigrants working in the United States. TPI’s research will be underwritten by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the largest private-sector funding source for economic research in the United States.
October 17th Event: Technology Policy Institute to Hold Discussion of Privacy and Data Security Issues Facing the Next Administration
Expert Panel Will Include Policy Advisers to Presidential Candidates Obama and McCain
The End or the Means? The Pursuit of Competition in Regulated Telecommunications Markets
Economic analysis takes as its defining performance benchmark the pursuit of increases in welfare (efficiency). Competition is merely one of a variety of means of achieving the efficiency end, especially in industries where the underlying economic circumstances predispose them towards greatest efficiency when competition (in the form of many market participants) is restricted. Typically, regulatory intervention in these industries is justified by the imperative to increase efficiency. Competition law and industry-specific regulation provide two competing means of intervention whereby the pursuit of efficiency can be enhanced. The challenge is in determining how to allocate responsibility for governance of industry interaction between these two institutional forms. Whilst competition law can govern interaction in most industries, where the underlying economic conditions are sufficiently different, industry-specific regulation offers advantages. However, its weakness is the risk of capture, leading to the subjugation of the efficiency end to the pursuit of other objectives (e.g. competition – the means – as an end in itself). But if the regulatory institution could be bound in some way to pursue an efficiency objective, could the risk of capture be averted?
A Comparison of the Technology Policies of Barack Obama and John McCain
This comparison is drawn from and adheres closely to statements on the presidential candidates? websites.1 Both websites list technology among the issues most important to their campaigns. The comparison summarizes the candidates? views on key issues and highlights important similarities and differences.
Electricity Market Design and Infrastructure Investments by William Hogan
https://techpolicyinstitute.org/events/show/64.html