The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and commercial banking. However, recent concerns about market power in restructured electricity markets, airline industry instability amid chronic financial stress, and the challenges created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which allowed commercial banks to participate in investment banking, have led to calls for renewed market intervention. Economic Regulation and Its Reform collects research by a group of distinguished scholars who explore these and other issues surrounding government economic intervention. Determining the consequences of such intervention requires a careful assessment of the costs and benefits of imperfect regulation. Moreover, government interventions may take a variety of forms, from relatively nonintrusive performance-based regulations to more aggressive antitrust and competition policies and barriers to entry. This volume introduces the key issues surrounding economic regulation, provides an assessment of the economic effects of regulatory reforms over the past three decades, and examines how these insights bear on some of today’s most significant concerns in regulatory policy.

This book is distilled from articles presented at two seminars held at Rutgers -- The State University of New Jersey on October 25, 1991, and May 1, 1992, entitled 'Economic Innovations in Public Utility Regulations'. These contributions represent the best new research on various topics in public utility regulation, including topics in antitrust law, the environmental impact of public utility regulation, incentive regulation, price-cap regulation, and contractual relationships.

Systems of accounts applicable to Class A, B, C, and D utilities.