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on Regulation |
| By: | Thomas Wein (Institute of Economics, Leuphana University of Lüneburg); Heike Wetzel (Institute of Economics, Leuphana University of Lüneburg) |
| Abstract: | Reviewing the development of network access charges in the German electricity market since 2002 reveals significant variation. While some firms continually increased or decreased their access charges, a variety of firms exhibited discontinuousn behavior with price changes in both directions. From an economic viewpoint this price setting turbulence is astonishing because grid operators are non-contestable natural monopolists, which in this time period were regulated by Negotiated Third Party Access (NTPA). Depending on the eectiveness or ineectiveness of NTPA,expected behavior would be either regulated average cost prices or monopoly prices, but not the observed turbulence. Although in 2005 NTPA scheme was replaced by a Regulated Third Party Access (RTPA) scheme with a regulator, an analysis of the factors influencing the price setting behavior within this period oers valuable information for the new regulator and the still discussed new incentive regulation, which is expected to start in 2009. Using multivariate estimations based on firm data covering the years 2000-2005, we test the hypotheses that asymmetric influence of regulatory threat, dierent cost and price calculation knowledge, strategic use of structural features and the obligation to publish specific access charges have influenced the electricity network access charges in Germany. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: deregulation, natural monopoly, power industry |
| JEL: | D42 L43 L94 |
| Date: | 2007–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lue:wpaper:62&r=reg |
| By: | Jan Wenzelburger (Keele University, Centre for Economic Research and School of Economic and Management Studies); Hans Gersbach (Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the question of whether sophistication in risk management fosters banking stability. We compare a simple banking system in which an average rating is used with a sophisticated banking system in which banks are able to assess the default risk of entrepreneurs individually. Both banking systems compete for deposits, loans, and bank equity. While a sophisticated system rewards entrepreneurs with low default risks with low loan interest rates, a simple system acquires more bank equity and finances more entrepreneurs. Expected repayments in a simple system are always higher and its default risk is lower if productivity is sufficiently high. Expected aggregate consumption of entrepreneurs, however, is higher in a sophisticated banking system. |
| Keywords: | Financial intermediation, macroeconomic risks, risk management, risk premia, banking regulation, rating. |
| JEL: | D40 E44 G21 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kee:kerpuk:2007/08&r=reg |
| By: | Barros, Pedro Pita; Clougherty, Joseph A; Seldeslachts, Jo |
| Abstract: | Antitrust policy involves not just the regulation of anti-competitive behavior, but also an important deterrence effect. Neither scholars nor policymakers have fully researched the deterrence effects of merger policy tools, as they have been unable to empirically measure these effects. We consider the ability of different antitrust actions – Prohibitions, Remedies, and Monitorings – to deter firms from engaging in mergers. We employ cross-jurisdiction/pan-time data on merger policy to empirically estimate the impact of antitrust actions on future merger frequencies. We find merger prohibitions to lead to decreased merger notifications in subsequent periods, and remedies to weakly increase future merger notifications: in other words, prohibitions involve a deterrence effect but remedies do not. |
| Keywords: | antitrust; deterrence; merger policy; remedies |
| JEL: | K21 L40 L49 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6437&r=reg |
| By: | L. Guarcello; S. Lyon; F. Rosati; C. A. Valdivia |
| Abstract: | The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and ILO Convention No. 182, two of the main international legal instruments relating to child labour, both recognise children’s right to be protected from forms of work that adversely affect their health and development, regardless of whether this activity is economic or non-economic, market or non-market, in nature. But these norms have not been translated into a universally-accepted statistical definition of child labour. Widely differing positions prevail among researchers about what kind of activities performed by children should be classified as children’s work, and progressively, as child labour. The current study forms part of a broader research effort directed towards arriving eventually at an internationally acceptable consensus on the statistical definition of child labour. It looks specifically at children’s non-market activity, its classification (i.e., economic or non- economic), its impact on health and education outcomes, and at some of the issues linked to the inclusion of non-market activity in the definition of child labour. The study should be seen as an initial contribution to the discussion, aimed at raising key measurement questions requiring further investigation and deliberation. |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucw:worpap:33&r=reg |
| By: | Christopher S. Carpenter; Mark Stehr |
| Abstract: | We provide the first comprehensive assessment of the effects of mandatory seatbelt laws on self-reported seatbelt use, highway fatalities, and crash-related injuries among high school age youths using data from the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) national, state, and local Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) from 1991 to 2005, a period spanning over 20 changes in state seatbelt laws. Our quasi-experimental approaches isolate the independent effects of seatbelt laws net of demographic characteristics, area and year fixed effects, and smooth area-specific trends. Across all data sources, we find consistent evidence that state mandatory seatbelt laws -- particularly those permitting primary enforcement -- significantly increased seatbelt use among high school age youths by 45-80 percent, primarily at the extensive margin. Unlike previous research for adults, however, we find evidence against the selective recruitment hypothesis: seatbelt laws had consistently larger effects on those most likely to be involved in traffic accidents (drinkers, alcohol-involved drivers). We also find that mandatory seatbelt laws significantly reduced traffic fatalities and serious injuries resulting from fatal crashes by 8 and 9 percent, respectively. Our results suggest that if all states had primary enforcement seatbelt laws then regular youth seatbelt use would be nearly universal and youth fatalities would fall by about 120 per year. |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13408&r=reg |
| By: | Riccardo Calcagno (Free University and Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam; CeRP, Turin); Roman Kraeussl (Free University of Amsterdam and Center for Financial Studies, Frankfurt am Main); Chiara Monticone (CeRP, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the effects of the reform of the system of severance indemnities (TFR) currently in use for Italian employees on the cost and the access to credit for Italian small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The most direct consequence of the reform will be to reduce the amount of liquid assets available to Italian firms. We argue that this reform, which will produce its first effects in July 2007, will reduce the aggregate investment by SMEs in a more than proportional way in a long run, since it will restrict the access to credit for some of them (Holmstrom and Tirole, 1997). However, we also predict that the reform will not increase the cost of intermediated finance in the long run, coeteris paribus. Nonetheless, in the short-term, if the level of investment by firms can be considered as exogenous, the reform is likely to increase the cost of bank credit for SMEs. In order to perform quantitative estimates of the effect of the reform, we also estimate the future outflows of TFR from the balance sheet of the firms from data covering the whole population of Italian firms. |
| Keywords: | severance indemnities, moral hazard, credit constraints |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crp:wpaper:59&r=reg |