The effect of deregulation on environmental research by electric utilities

This paper analyzes the impact of deregulation and restructuring on public-interest environmental research conducted by electric utilities in the US from 1990 to 2001. I find that deregulation has had a substantial negative impact on such expenditures, which have declined by 40%. However, restructuring has had no significant impact. In addition, the 1990 Clear Air Act Amendments have adversely affected such expenditures, contrary to the positive impact these regulations had on pollution abatement R&D as shown in the literature. Results also suggest that state and firm characteristics and regulator preferences play a strong role in the conduct of such research.      

Here we go again…the Permanently Failing Organization: An application to the airline industry in Eastern Europe

This paper analyzes the performance of the Central and Eastern Europe airline industry through the lens of the “Permanently Failing Organization” (PFO) framework. Based on elite interviews from management in the three airlines but also from other organizations within the industry, it confirms the salience of key theoretical features of the PFO framework by providing evidence for the persistence of short-term decision making; ongoing contradictions between articulated strategy and its poor or non existent implementation and frequently assiduous intervention by governments that rather than fostering decisive decision-making served to do the opposite. These factors contributed to reinforcing deeply held beliefs in the management that they would survive despite the obvious problems they have faced. External stakeholders – especially governments should reflect carefully on their role in fostering permanent failure.     

Deregulation of Shopping Hours: The Impact on Independent Retailers and Chain Stores

This paper studies shopping hour decisions by retail chains and independent competitors. We use a Salop‐type model in which retailers compete in prices and shopping hours. Our results depend significantly on efficiency differences between the retail chain and the independent retailer. If the efficiency difference is small, the independent retailer may choose longer shopping hours than the retail chain and may therefore gain from deregulation at the expense of the retail chain. The opposite result emerges when the efficiency difference is large. Then, the retail chain may benefit whereas the independent retailer loses from deregulation.     

Geographical deregulation and competition in U.S. banking markets

The effects of geographical deregulation on competition in banking markets is examined. Using a model that develops an index of competition as proposed by Bresnahan and applied to banking markets by Shaffer, the empirical evidence suggests that geographical deregulation has not had a significant impact on competition. The limited effects of geographical deregulation on competition is consistent with other evidence presented, suggesting that banking markets were already highly competitive. In those states where a significant effect was observed, geographical deregulation increased the degree of competition in some states but had the opposite effect in others.     

TV Product Placement in Korea

This study reviewed the process of discussion and the present state related to the permission of product placement (PPL) in Korea. This study also reviewed opinions for or against PPL-related laws and regulations and the relaxation of PPL restrictions. The responses of stakeholders and PPL-related discussions of the academic and government organizations were addressed through public hearings and forums when PPL was restricted by the Broadcasting Act. Finally, this study reviewed the present state after the permission of PPL, including PPL-related laws and regulations and PPL selling methods. In January 2010, as the revised bill of the enforcement ordinance of the Broadcasting Act was approved in a Cabinet meeting, PPL was permitted for terrestrial broadcasting and cable channels. The broadcast advertising market is expected to continue expanding in the future.     

放松管制与规制重建—中国基础部门引入竞争后的政府行为分析

随着基础部门逐渐引入竞争,政府在放松管制的同时,为确保有效竞争的实现,还需要重建规制。规制重建包括两大方面,一是规制机构本身的重建,重点是要实现政企分开和保持规制机构的独立性;二是规制内容体系的完善,重点是要建立包括激励性规制、不对称规制、反垄断规制与社会性规制在内的“四位一体”的规制体系。     

Declining Effects of Oil Price Shocks

In recent years, output responses to oil price shocks have not only been weaker, but have also reached their trough earlier. This paper builds a model that incorporates a realistic structure of U.S. petroleum consumption and explores three possible explanations for the changes. The possible factors considered are (i) deregulation in the transportation industry, (ii) improved energy efficiency, and (iii) a lower degree of persistence of oil price shocks. Under realistic parameter values, the three factors play an important role quantitatively, accounting for half of the reduction in the largest impact on output of an oil price shock over time.     

Deregulation of wholesale petrol prices: what happened to capital city petrol prices?

Wholesale petrol prices were deregulated in August 1998. This paper will quantify the effect associated with the deregulation of wholesale petrol prices on relative retail prices for unleaded petrol in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. This is done through Box–Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average methodology coupled with Box and Tiao intervention analysis. Weekly price data will be used for Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. It finds that from the beginning of 1999, deregulation coincided with relatively lower retail petrol prices for all three cities. In the absence of any other possible alternative explanation for the simultaneous fall in relative retail petrol prices across all three cities, it is concluded that this change was most likely associated with deregulation. These results suggest that regulation of wholesale petrol prices were ineffectual in terms of constraining capital city retail petrol prices at the very least and may have actually contributed towards relatively higher retail petrol prices. This also suggests that future policy interventions designed to constrain prices in the downstream petroleum industry should be very carefully considered.     

Property,Power, and Public Choice: An Inquiry into Law and Economics

This article briefly describes the evolution of the recent economic crisis based on different theories toward my own interpretation of it. The deregulation wave of the last decades has created new profit opportunities in various contexts — from labor flexibility to privatization and from financialization to globalization — so promoting a renewed process of capitalist accumulation after the stagflation of the 1970s. This has taken place at the cost of a wide-ranging increase in inequality and instability, thus bringing a cascade of crises, including the latest one of 2008.     

Economic determinants of deregulation in the gas distribution market

Many state public commissions have deregulated their utility markets. However, evidence of welfare or efficiency improvements under deregulation is ambiguous. It is also unclear why different states adopt consumer choice, price caps, sliding-scale plans, or retain rate-of-return regulation. This study evaluates several economic factors behind deregulation in gas distribution markets using a survey of state commissions. Logistic and hazard models show that utilities’ prices and capacity, and states’ stock of own gas wells, prices of competing fuels and the regulatory climate, help explain the pattern of deregulation. Demonstration effects from surrounding markets also contribute. These factors make the propensity to use price caps versus restructuring vary regionally.