Просмотр новости
Найдите то, что Вас интересует
Спутники
РН
SpaceX
Роскосмос
NASA
СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASADoes overlapping regulation of municipal electric utilities facilitate rent extraction at the expense of residential consumers? I study a setting in which two non-coordinating regulators, a city council setting prices and a state public utility commission approving investment, govern a single utility. Using Texas household data from 2005 to 2023, I exploit the 2010 acquisition of Xcel Energy’s distribution assets by the dual-regulated Lubbock Power & Light (LP&L) as a natural experiment. The acquisition eliminated competing service providers, consolidating Lubbock under a dual-regulated municipal monopoly. Leveraging a similarly-sized 2010 distribution asset acquisition in Midland, Texas and a dual-regulated utility environment in Denton, Texas absent acquisition, I apply a triple-differences estimation at the household level to measure additional acquisition rents attributable to dual-regulation. Synthetic control method specifications at the city level are additionally estimated to test for the effect of acquisitions on Lubbock and Midland billing independently of regulatory status. Under the most conservative specification, the regulatory environment in Lubbock increased the aggregate impact of acquisition on annual residential electric costs by an estimated $20.8 million for LP&L customers alone, totaling $270 million in additional rents from 2011 to 2023. This implies roughly 13.6% higher household electric bills on average than would have been attributable to effects of acquisition alone. Robust variations on specifications yield consistent evidence that residential electric bills in Lubbock rose well in excess of acquisition costs and persisted beyond a cost-recovery period. Results are consistent with information asymmetry between fragmented regulators enabling additional rents and with the public choice literature determining relative inefficiency in effectively less contestable regulatory frameworks.