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.     

Input usage,output mix and industry deregulation: an analysis of the Australian dairy manufacturing industry*

In this paper we estimate a Translog output distance function for a balanced panel of state level data for the Australian dairy processing sector. We estimate a fixed effects specification employing Bayesian methods, with and without the imposition of monotonicity and curvature restrictions. Our results indicate that Tasmania and Victoria are the most technically efficient states with New South Wales being the least efficient. The imposition of theoretical restrictions marginally affects the results especially with respect to estimates of technical change and industry deregulation. Importantly, our bias estimates show changes in both input use and output mix that result from deregulation. Specifically, we find that deregulation has positively biased the production of butter, cheese and powders.     

How does institutional change affect heterogeneity among firms?

This paper examines the variation in performance of incumbents and entrants following the deregulation of prices and entry in the airline industry. Our approach is similar to earlier studies of interfirm performance heterogeneity across industries. Drawing on theories of industry evolution, we hypothesize that the performance of entrants will have higher variance than incumbents. Further, given the opportunities offered by price deregulation, we propose that incumbents will have higher variance in performance under deregulation than in the earlier regime. The findings indicate that entrant performance heterogeneity is significantly greater than incumbent performance heterogeneity following deregulation, but that the variation in performance among incumbents does not significantly change when deregulation occurs. The second result is surprising given the range of service and process innovations that incumbents initiated. These results suggest that the distinction between entrants and incumbents is critical to future studies of performance variation within and across industries. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

新阶段中国垄断性行业改革的三线推进战略

垄断性行业的改革是中国新阶段经济体制改革能否取得战略性突破的“关键之战”。在经济加快发展、市场化深度推进和经济全球化的新形势下，推进中国垄断性行业的改革必须要有新思维。本文提出，中国新阶段推进垄断性行业的改革应实行“三线推进”战略：一是以“引入竞争机制、构筑规模型竞争格局”为核心的市场结构改革；二是以“引入非公有资本，实现公私资本相机参与”为特征的产权制度改革；三是以“放松管制与重建规制并重”为内容的政府监管改革。只有实行上述“三线推进”战略，方能使垄断性行业的改革取得实质性突破。     

强制性管制放松与边缘性进入的发生--"小灵通"现象的深层思考

本文的分析表明“小灵通”现象的发生是市场需求结构、管制放松的路径和管制权力安排共同作用的结果。以拆分原有在位者为主要手段的电信业管制放松,所造成的需求与价格的矛盾为“小灵通”的发生提供了市场机会,而高盈利业务的被剥离,迫使原有在位者利用尚存的垄断势力或优势,以及和管制者的“拆分—补偿”关系,向新运营商的市场进行了局部的渗透。这种行为表面上加剧了中国电信业管制的无序和混乱,但却提高了市场的可竞争性和消费者剩余。     

The emergence of sustainable industries: building on natural capital

This paper focuses on the emergence and growth of sustainable industries, specifically analyzing the rise of the wind energy industry in California. Based on a favorable institutional environment and the presence of abundant natural capital, the wind energy industry took root and flourished in California during the last two decades. This paper analyzes this phenomenon by exploring the determinants of where and when wind energy projects would be established. Findings suggest that in locations where natural, social, and economic influences converged, greater wind energy activity followed. The paper advances a simple framework that uses natural capital, site specificity, and institutional environments to predict which sustainable industries will enjoy growth in coming decades. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electricity: Changes and Issues

This paper surveys recent developments in therestructuring and deregulation of the electric utilityindustry. New federal and state legislation isreviewed together with commission actions designed to carry out restructuring. The Department of Energy's highly controversial attempt to measure the netbenefits of electricity deregulation is noted, alongwith the response of DOE's critics. Five major factorsthat will affect the success or failure ofrestructuring and deregulation are examined at length. These include: growing industry concentration, theincreased risk premium attached to the market trading of electricity, the transition costs that will beincurred, the organization and governance of thetransmission network, and the adequacy of consumer and environmental protection in the new setting.     

Who Benefits from Deregulating the Separation of Banking Activities? Differential Effects on Commercial Bank,Investment Bank,and Thrift Stock Returns

We analyze the deregulation impact on commercial banks, investment banks, and thrifts associated with four major events progressively integrating commercial and investment banking activities in the United States during the 1990s. We find that commercial banks are the only group to react favorably to Federal Reserve announcements relaxing firewalls and easing restrictions on commercial bank revenues from investment banking activities. These regulations primarily benefit large banks. The Bankers Trust acquisition announcement of investment bank Alex Brown is associated with increased wealth for each of the three types of financial service institutions. At the eventual deregulation of the financial services industry, with the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999, the values of commercial banks and investment banks increase significantly although thrifts are not affected.     

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.     

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.