Regulation under Financial Constraints

This article studies the problem of regulating a monopolist with unknown marginal cost. The originality of the paper is to consider that the regulator faces a cash-in-advance constraint. The introduction of such a constraint not only reduces the amount of public good provided but also limits the instruments available to the regulator. The wealth constraint could change the optimal regulatory contract from a two-part tariff, where the quantities produced depend on the firm's cost, to a fixed fee where the firm produces the same quantity whatever its cost.