The effects of mergers on price and output: Two case studies from the airline industry

The literature on industrial organization contains very little direct evidence on the effects of actual mergers. This study estimates the effects of two recent airline mergers approved by the Department of Transportation over the objection of the Department of Justice. The merger of TWA and Ozark appears to have caused a slight increase in fares and a far greater reduction in service on city pairs out of St Louis. The merger of Northwest and Republic appears to have caused a significant increase in fares and a significant reduction in overall service on city pairs out of Minneapolis-St Paul.     

Alfred E. Kahn, 1917–2010

Our introduction to this compendium reviews Alfred Kahn’s academic and policy interests, his activities as a regulator and advisor to governments and companies, and the interactions between these aspects of his life as an economist. Although best known for his research on the economics of regulation and his application of microeconomic principles in his role as a regulator and advisor, Kahn’s academic research portfolio was much more diverse. He wrote about patent policy, economic development, antitrust policy, and other topics, in addition to his work on regulation and deregulation. Even before becoming a regulator he was actively involved in applying economic principles to regulatory problems as an advisor and consultant. In all of his work Kahn recognized that markets were imperfect, but that policies aimed at improving market performance often made things worse. His experience as a regulator and consultant strengthened his recognition that the costs of imperfect regulation had to be carefully balanced against the costs of imperfect markets. One had to search for the best that could be done in an imperfect world. Kahn was particularly fascinated by the challenges of designing and implementing policies to govern the transition from regulated monopoly or oligopoly to an industry that would ultimately rely primarily on competitive markets to govern firm behavior and performance. Fred Kahn was an extraordinary man who is missed greatly by his many friends and colleagues representing a wide range of political orientations and approaches to economic and public policy analysis.     

Retail electricity competition

We analyze a number of unstudied aspects of retail electricity competition. We first explore the implications of load profiling of consumers whose traditional meters do not permit the measurement of their real‐time consumption. The combination of retail competition and load profiling does not yield the second‐best prices given the non‐price‐responsiveness of retail consumers. We then examine the incentives that electricity retailers have to install each of two types of advanced metering equipment. Finally, we consider the implications of physical limitations on the ability of system operators to cut off individual consumers relying instead on “zonal” rationing of large groups of individual consumers     

Privatization in Russia: What Should be a Firm?

This paper examines a variety of issues associated with the restructuring of Russian industry prior to privatization, from a transactions cost perspective. It is argued that none of the components of the industrial hierarchies inherited from the Soviet system corresponded closely to firms in a modem market economy. Moreover, product–level concentration of production created potential monopoly problems. Ideally, it would have been desirable to restructure Russian industry to create efficient organizations and competitive market structures prior to privatization. However, political and information constraints precluded widespread fine tuning of the existing industrial hierarchies prior to privatization. Given these constraints, the decision of the Gaidar government to focus privatization on ’enterprises’, i.e. the smallest organizational units within the industrial hierarchies, was sensible and led to significant deconcentration of Russian industry. Policies with regard to voluntary separation of subunits of enterprises and aggregation of enterprises prior to privatization also helped to promote deconcentration. Significant additional restructuring of Russian industry is expected now that the mass privatization has been completed.     

California's Electricity Crisis

The paper examines the economic and regulatory factors thatled to an explosion in wholesale power prices, supply shortages,and utility insolvencies in California's electricity sectorfrom May 2000 to June 2001. The structure of California's restructuredelectricity sector and its early performance are discussed.The effects on wholesale market prices of rising natural gasprices, increasing demand, reduced power imports, rising pollutioncredit prices, and market power, beginning in the summer of2000, are analysed, The regulatory responses leading to utilitycredit problems and supply shortages are identified. The effectsof falling natural gas prices, reduced demand, state power-procurementinitiatives, and price-mitigation programmes on prices beginningin June 2001 are discussed. A set of lessons learned from theCalifornia experience concludes the paper.     

Potential Competition: The Bell Atlantic/NYNEX Merger

Review of Industrial Organization -     

Reliability and competitive electricity markets

We derive the optimal prices and investment program for an electric power system when there are price‐insensitive retail consumers served by load serving entities that can choose any level of rationing contingent on real‐time prices. We then examine the assumptions required for competitive electricity markets to achieve this optimal price and investment program and the implications of relaxing several of these assumptions. We analyze the interrelationships between regulator‐imposed wholesale market price caps and generating capacity obligations. The implications of potential network collapses for operating reserve requirements and whether market prices yield generation investments consistent with these reserve requirements are examined.     

Transaction Cost Economics, Antitrust Rules, and Remedies

This article discusses the application of transaction cost economics(TCE) to the specification of antitrust legal rules and antitrustremedies and explains why the application of TCE analysis maylead to very different legal rules and remedies from approachesthat ignore TCE considerations. Antitrust legal rules must besensitive to the attributes of the institutions we rely uponto enforce antitrust policies, the information and analyticalcapabilities these institutions possess, the uncertainties theymust confront in the diagnosis and mitigation of anticompetitivebehavior and market structures, and the associated costs oftype I and type II errors implied by alternative legal rulesand remedies. Modern imperfect competition theory that failsto take TCE principles into account is likely to lead to poorlegal rules and remedies. These conclusions are supported bya discussion of the Kodak case and its progeny and of the proposeddivestiture remedies approved by the District Court's decisionin the Microsoft case.     

MERCHANT TRANSMISSION INVESTMENT*

We examine the performance attributes of a merchant transmission investment framework that relies on ‘market driven’ investment to increase transmission network capacity needed to support competitive wholesale markets for electricity. Under a stringent set of assumptions, the merchant investment model has a remarkable set of attributes that appears to solve the natural monopoly problem and the associated need for regulating electric transmission companies. We expand the merchant model to incorporate several attributes of wholesale power markets and transmission networks that the merchant model ignores. These include market power in wholesale electricity markets, lumpiness in transmission investment opportunities, stochastic attributes of transmission networks and associated property rights definition issues, strategic behavior by potential merchant transmission investors and issues related to the coordination of transmission system operators and merchant transmission owners. Incorporating these more realistic attributes of transmission networks and the behavior of transmission owners and system operators leads to the conclusion that several potentially significant inefficiencies may result from reliance on the merchant transmission investment framework. Accordingly, it is inappropriate for policymakers to assume that they can avoid dealing with the many challenges associated with stimulating efficient levels of investment in electric transmission networks by adopting the merchant model.     

The performance of coal-burning electric generating units in the United States: 1960–1980

This paper studies determinants of the thermal efficiency and reliability of coal-burning electric generating units using a new, comprehensive, unbalanced panel data set. For two major technological groups consistent and efficient estimates are obtained of the effects of unit age, vintage, scale, operating practices, and coal quality. Large utilities integrated into design and engineering appear to obtain superior unit performance. Implications of our results for life-cycle generation costs, regulators' performance norms, and the complex pattern of technological change in this industry are discussed.