Bush v. Gore and the Effect of New Source Review on Power Plant Emissions

New Source Review (NSR) is a Clean Air Act regulation that requires electric utilities to meet emission standards when making modifications to existing power plants. The regulation increases the cost of replacing worn out parts, and limits the firm’s scope of potential capital investments. Such restrictions may lead to greater retirements and lower utilization, adversely affecting profits. Prior to the 2000 presidential election, investors expected Bush to have a narrower interpretation of NSR than Gore. Therefore, we use changes in stock prices to estimate the effect on profits of differences in NSR policy. Our results indicate that investors expected the average boiler to be $38 million more valuable under the Bush administration. Over the boilers’ lifetimes, the additional utilization will have increased emissions by 19 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 5.9 million tons of nitrogen oxides and 980 million tons of carbon dioxide, relative to natural gas generation.      

Policy discourse and data retention: The technology politics of surveillance in the United Kingdom

This article presents an analysis of UK legislation on the retention of communications data that was introduced in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. It presents a review of the discourses surrounding this legislation in parliament, in the wider international policy arena, in business and in terms of technology. The review of these discourses demonstrates that, in understanding policies involving a significant technological component such as communications data retention, policy alternatives may be evaluated only with an appreciation of technological characteristics alongside the traditional concerns of legislators, civil society and the business community. While academia has developed many forms of analysis for political, international, and regulatory discourses, the same must be undertaken for technological discourse, i.e. the interactions between the policies in question, the actors, and the technologies. Developing forms of analysis for technological discourses will likely lead to further understanding of both the policy problem and the actors’ interests. The paper also shows how current institutions are slowly developing the necessary skills to incorporate the technological aspects of policy into political debate, and calls for a similar development for the law.     

Defining Markets for Ex Ante Regulation using the Hypothetical Monopoly Test

The EU is gradually systematizing its approach to ex ante regulation (notably with the publication of the recent regulatory framework for Electronic communications). Market definition is viewed as an essential first step in this, with the ‘Hypothetical Monopoly Test’ a useful conceptual tool for use in the assessment. This paper examines the use of this test for market definition when there are several differentiated goods or services under consideration. It sets out an analytic framework, discusses the pros and cons of using the test and illustrates its use in a Telecom context.     

Authentic Program Planning in Technology Education

This paper reports on the needs identified by three teachers during an investigation into their first experiences of implementing technology in their primary classrooms. One part of one teacher's case is presented in detail to illustrate that the meanings the teachers made of their experiences were related very closely to their beliefs about teaching and learning, to their understanding of technology as a phenomenon and to the place they saw technology having within the whole curriculum. One particular outcome of the investigation was that the teachers experienced a lack of knowledge of the scope and breadth of the technology learning area, and as a consequence, faced challenges in planning for the successful implementation of activities. In response to this particular need and to the many issues emanating from current research literature in technology education, the paper then presents two models for conceptualizing and planning units of work in technology in primary classrooms. The models form frameworks that may be useful to help structure thinking for authentic classroom planning and sequencing of lessons or learning experiences. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Bankers, Industrialists, and their Cliques: Elite Networks in Mexico and Brazil during Early Industrialization

The historiographies of Mexico and Brazil have implicitly statedthat business networks were crucial for the initial industrializationof these two countries. Recently, differing visions on the importanceof business networks have arisen. In the case of Mexico, theliterature argues that entrepreneurs relied heavily on an informalinstitutional structure to obtain necessary resources and information.In contrast, the recent historiography of Brazil suggests thatafter 1890 the network of corporate relations became less importantfor entrepreneurs trying to obtain capital and concessions,once the institutions promoted financial markets and easy entryfor new businesses. Did entrepreneurs in Brazil and Mexico organizetheir networks differently to deal with the different institutionalsettings? We examine whether in Mexico businessmen relied moreon networks of interlocking boards of directors and other informalarrangements to do business than in Brazil. Our hypothesis isconfirmed by three related results: (1) the total number ofconnections (i.e., the density of the network) was higher inMexico than Brazil; (2) in Mexico, there was one dense corenetwork, while in Brazil we find fairly dispersed clusters ofcorporate board interlocks; and most importantly, (3) politiciansplayed a more important role in the Mexican network of corporatedirectors than their counterparts in Brazil. Interestingly,even though Brazil and Mexico relied on very different institutionalstructures, both countries had similar rates of growth between1890 and 1913. However, the dense and exclusive Mexican networkmight have ended up increasing the social and political tensionsthat led to the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920).     

Price-cap regulation and market definition

One of the merits claimed for certain types of price-cap regulation is the possible long-run convergence of the prices of multi-product firms to Ramsey prices. Typically such regulated firms define commodities by such devices as dividing the day into discrete periods, customers into age-groups, distances into ranges, and so on. Allowing that such division is endogenous throws doubt on the ability of Laspeyre quantity-based price-caps to encourage an efficient market definition and hence to generate an efficient price structure.     

RESOURCE DEGRADATION ON AGRICULTURAL LAND: INFORMATION PROBLEMS,MARKET FAILURES AND GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION*

Information problems impede private contracting for the supply of many natural resource services. They are also likely to prevent the government identifying and achieving optimum levels of natural resource degradation on agricultural land. In particular, the distributional impacts of government intervention create incentives for strategic distortions of information by interested parties. Resource conservation measures which impose costs on beneficiaries, and which provide positive incentives for farmers to monitor resource degradation, may be superior because they reduce information problems.     

GOVERNMENT VERSUS PRIVATE QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR AUSTRALIAN FOOD EXPORTS

Most foodstuffs have quality attributes that are difficult to determine prior to purchase. Thus quality assurance is an inherent problem in food exporting. Private quality assurance can succeed if exporters can credibly signal that they have much to lose from cessation of purchases. If exporters do not provide credible quality signals, and foreign importers judge food quality according to country of origin, honest exporters can suffer negative spillovers from others' cheating under either government or private quality assurance. For both economic and political reasons, the best choice between government and private quality assurance will differ between foods and importing countries.