Overview

Michael A. Einhorn In continuing to deregulate telecommunications companies, regulators have begun to consider alternative approaches to traditional cost-based price regulation as a means of encouraging monopoly efficiency, promulgating technological innova­ tion, protecting consumers, and reducing administrative costs. Under cost-based regulatory procedures that had been used, prices were designed to recover the regulated company's costs plus an allowed rate of return on its rate base; this strategy was costly to administer, provided no consistent incentives to cost-ef­ ficiency and technological improvement, afforded many opportunities for strategic misrepresentation of reported costs, and may have encouraged both uneconomic expansion of the utility's rate base and cross-subsidization of its competitive services. A category of alternative regulatory approaches can be classified broadly as social contracts. Under the general strategy of social contract regulation, regulators first delimit a group of regulated core services that they continue to regulate and then stipulate a list of constraints that the utility must agree to meet in the future; in exchange, regulators agree to detariff or deregulate entirely other competitive or nonessential services that the utility may offer. As long as no stipulated constraints are violated, the utility may price freely any service; if it reduces costs, it may keep a share of its profits. According to the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA, 1987), social contract agreements of one form or another have been considered or implemented in a majority of American states.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michael A. Einhorn
Publisher:   Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Imprint:   Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Edition:   Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1991
Volume:   6
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.403kg
ISBN:  

9781461367765

ISBN 10:   146136776
Pages:   244
Publication Date:   30 September 2012
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

1 Introduction.- 2 A Non-Bayesian Incentive Mechanism Using Two-Part Tariffs.- 3 Regulating by Capping Prices.- 4 Information, Incentives, and Commitment in Regulatory Mechanisms: Regulatory Innovation in Telecommunications.- 5 Productivity and Price Caps in Telecommunications.- 6 Constant and Variable Productivity Adjustments for Price-Cap Regulation.- 7 A Sequential Mechanism for Direct Price Regulation.- 8 Incentives for Cost Reduction Under Price-Cap Regulation.- 9 The Quality of Regulation in Regulating Quality: A Proposal for an Integrated Incentive Approach to Telephone Service Performance.- 10 Optional Tariffs for Access Under the FCC’s Price-Cap Proposal.- 11 Optional Calling Plans and Bypass Efficiency.- 12 Pricing and Investment Incentives Under Price Ceiling Regulation.

Reviews

'This book is a fine source of materials on price-caps and incentive regulation. It is highly topical and should appeal to anyone, especially economists, interested in the telecommunications industry. In addittion, it would make an excellent supplement text to any graduate-level course on regiulation.' Int. J. General Systems 20 1992

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