This paper explores the similarity of the underlying economic problems that lead to the establishment of (a) independent central banks to operate national monetary policies and (b) independent regulatory agencies for telecommunications and other utility service industries. We show that, in both...

Dynamic principal-agent settings with asymmetric information but no commitment are well known to create a ratchet effect. Here, the most efficient agents must be provided with extra 'information rent' as an incentive to relinquish their informational advantage over an uninformed principal; this...

A time-inconsistency problem in regulation often results in under-investment es- pecially where there are high sunk costs in network industries such as electricity, gas, telecommunications and water. This paper provides a new perspective on this ‘hold-up’ problem facing the price regulation...