Do elected public utility commissioners behave more politically than appointed ones?

In the United States, public utility commissioners are either appointed or elected and the vast majority is either Republican or Democrat. While previous research has analyzed whether selection method and political affiliation have independent effects on the policy choices of these commissioners, this paper investigates whether these influences may be interrelated and how this question can be analyzed empirically. The context explored in this paper is telecommunications network lease prices and retail prices. While data limitations preclude causal interpretations, the political affiliation of elected commissioners may be correlated with the lease prices that they set. Further, retail prices may vary with the political affiliation of appointed regulators.