Network Regulation under Electoral Competition

Speaker: Dr Magnus Soderberg
Affiliation: Griffith University
Location: Room 443 Michie Building (#9), UQ St Lucia campus or,
via Zoom link: https://uqz.zoom.us/j/82603079317

Abstract 

Academics and policymakers generally agree that energy infrastructure should be subject to price regulation. More and more critics of modern regulatory approaches, however, point to the apparent failures of these mechanisms to achieve competitive
pricing in practice. Some have suggested that customers ought to be involved in the regulatory process, but it is uncertain how customers’ perspectives can best be incorporated. In this study, we evaluate how electoral competition influences monopoly pricing by extending well-known regulatory laboratory experiments. We show that electoral competition has a significant and negative impact on prices. This effect disappears when electoral competition is implemented jointly with incentive regulation, implying substitutability rather than complementarity of regulation and electoral competition.

About the presenter's meeting 

If you would like to meet with Dr Soderberg contact: Dr Andrea La Nauze.