Price controls are a contentious topic in society and hence a good source for economics classroom engagement. The standard textbook analysis of price controls is lacking, however. This paper presents real-world examples and classroom exercises on the topic of price controls. The exercises...

This report is designed to be a self-contained introduction to performance-based regulation (PBR) with an emphasis on the energy sector in North America. The main topics include: key differences between PBR and traditional cost-of-service regulation (COSR), the various forms of PBR and their...

This paper integrates two separate branches of the law and economics literature to demonstrate the two-sided risk of market exclusion by a vertically-integrated firm (VIF) with upstream and downstream market power. The ratio of downstream (retail) to upstream (wholesale) price margins is key to...

A primary objective of performance-based regulation (PBR) is to increase the regulated firm’s incentives for efficiency relative to traditional rate-of-return regulation. The strength of those incentives is referred to as the power of the regulatory regime (PRR). The PRR depends on (i) the...

This note reveals that while the monopolist has ideal incentives to innovate, consistent with Schumpeter’s original hypothesis, the oligopolist’s incentive to innovate is non-monotonic in its market share and approaches that of the monopolist in the limit as the number of identical firms...

This paper examines price level regulation in two-sided markets with linear demands. We find that (i) price level regulation increases the price allocation asymmetry when reservation prices differ between the two sides of the market; and (ii) changes in the level of the price cap are divided...

We employ a Cournot model with interdependent demands to explore the interaction between demand and cost complementarities in mitigating upward pricing pressure, post-merger. The analysis reveals that even substantial increases in the HHI post-merger need not raise competitive concerns when...

In the authors' shared opinion, the economic evidence does not support the regulations proposed in the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Preserving the Open Internet and Broadband Industry Practices (the “NPRM”). To the contrary, the economic evidence provides no support...

In an October 22, 2009 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Federal Communications Commission posed a number of questions regarding the merits of price discrimination given the two-sided structure of broadband markets. The law and economics literature finds that price discrimination is...