Regulating mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities : : industry concentration and corporate complication /

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Regulating mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities : : industry concentration and corporate complication / / Scott Hempling.

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"What happens when electric utility monopolies pursue their acquisition interests-undisciplined by competition, and insufficiently disciplined by the regulators responsible for replicating competition? Since the mid-1980s, mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities have halved the numb...

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Bibliographic Details
VerfasserIn:
Hempling, Scott,
TeilnehmendeR:
Edward Elgar Publishing,
Place / Publishing House:Northampton : : Edward Elgar Publishing,, 2020.
Year of Publication:2020
Language:English
Physical Description:1 online resource (576 pages)
Notes:Includes index.
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Table of Contents:
  • Part I: The transactions: Sales of public franchises for private gain, undisciplined by competition, producing a concentrated, complicated industry no one intended
  • 1. Diverse strategies, common purpose: Selling public franchises for private gain
  • 2. Missing from utility merger markets: Competitive discipline
  • 3. The structural result: Concentration and complication no one intended
  • Part II: The harms: Economic waste, misallocation of gain, competitive distortion, customer risks and costs
  • 4. Suboptimal couplings cause economic waste
  • 5. Merging parties divert franchise value from the customers who created it
  • 6. Mergers can distort competition: Market power, anticompetitive conduct and unearned advantage
  • 7. Hierarchical conflict harms customers
  • Part III: Regulatory lapses: Visionlessness, reactivity, deference
  • 8. Regulators' unreadiness: Checklists instead of visions
  • 9. Promoters' strategy: Frame mergers as simple, positive, inevitable
  • 10. How do regulators respond? By ceding leadership, underestimating negatives and accepting minor positives
  • 11. Explanations: Passion gaps and mental shortcuts
  • Part IV: Solutions: Regulatory posture, practices and infrastructure
  • 12. Regulatory posture and practice: Less instinct, more analysis; less reactivity, more preparation
  • 13. Regulatory infrastructure: Strengthen regulatory resources, clarify statutory powers, assess mergers' effects
  • References
  • Index.

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