收益率规制再审视
Rate of Return Regulation Revisited
Journal of Public Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Karl Dunkle Werner", "affiliation": []}, {"name": "Stephen Jarvis", "affiliation": ["London School of Economics and Political Science"]}]
中文摘要
公用事业公司通过监管机构批准的回报率回收其资本成本。利用一个涵盖公用事业费率案例的综合数据库，我们发现相对于若干资本成本基准，受监管的股权回报率存在显著溢价。我们表明，企业会策略性地决定何时启动新的费率案例，使得受监管回报率对基础资本成本基准上升的反应快于对下降的反应。更高的受监管回报率激励公用事业公司持有更多资本：股权回报率每上升1个百分点，资本资产便增加3%–4%。总体而言，我们发现美国消费者承担的超额成本平均每年达70亿美元。
Abstract
Utility companies recover their capital costs through regulator-approved rates of return. Using a comprehensive database of utility rate cases, we find a significant premium for regulated returns on equity relative to several capital cost benchmarks. We show that firms decide strategically when to initiate new rate cases, such that regulated returns respond more quickly to increases in underlying capital cost benchmarks than to decreases. Higher regulated returns incentivize utilities to own more capital: a one percentage point rise in return on equity increases capital assets by 3-4%. Overall we find excess costs to US consumers averaging $7 billion per year.