Dwight Lee in the current issue of Regulation magazine offers “The Two Moralities of Outlawing Price Gouging.” In the article Lee endorsed economists’ traditional arguments against laws prohibiting price gouging, but argued efficiency claims aren’t persuasive to most people as they fail to address the moral issues raised surrounding treatment of victims of disasters. Lee wrote, “Economists’ best hope …
Geoff Manne of the International Center for Law and Economics has spearheaded a detailed, thorough, analytical letter to New Jersey Governor Christie examining the state’s ban on direct vehicle distribution and why it is bad for consumers. Geoff summarizes the argument in a post today at Truth on the Market: Earlier this month New Jersey …
Around the country lobbyists for utilities and solar power companies are fighting over public policy, mostly for and against reform of net metering policies.* Today, The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) trumpeted in a press release recent victories in the states of Utah and Washington over net metering reforms urged by utilities. TASC highlighted the …
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article, Jack Daniel’s Faces a Whiskey Rebellion, that highlights how politically powerful industries can use industry-protecting regulation to raise their rivals’ costs: At the company’s urging, Tennessee passed legislation last year requiring anything labeled “Tennessee Whiskey” not just to be made in the state, but also to be made …
Rent-seeking Diary: It’s Only Tennessee Whiskey if It’s Jack Daniel’s Read More »
By now you’ve probably heard that last week the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission passed a rule stipulating that automobile sales in the state cannot be direct-to-consumer, and must instead take place via dealer franchises. Tesla Motors was the clear target of this regulation, with its innovative electric vehicles and direct-to-consumer sales model. New Jersey …
Rent-seeking Diary: State Dealer Franchise Laws and Tesla Read More »
Last Monday I was scheduled to participate in the Utility Industry of the Future Symposium at the NYU Law School. Risk aversion about getting back for Tuesday classes in the face of a forecast 7″ snowfall in New York kept me from attending (and the snow never materialized, which makes the cost even more bitter!), …
Permissionless Innovation in Electricity: the Benefits of Experimentation Read More »
John Cochrane’s commentary in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, What To Do When Obamacare Unravels, provides a strong and thoughtful analysis of what a free health care market could look like. In his argument he accomplishes two important tasks: he lays out the extent to which the U.S. health care market is not a free …
Cochrane on Aca’s Unravelling: Parallels to Electricity Read More »
[Series header: On the Morning of October 15 the Institute for Energy Research in Washington DC released a report I’d written about the federal government’s wind power cost estimates. (Links available here.) Later that day Michael Goggin of the American Wind Energy Association, the lobbying organization in Washington DC that represents the wind energy industry, …
Wind Energy’s Price Suppression Effects (debating Wind Power Cost Estimates – 6) Read More »
PJM Interconnection has been studying, with the help of GE Energy Consulting and other groups, the consequences of adding significantly more wind energy and solar energy to its transmission grid. The “headline result” of a preliminary report, presented to PJM stakeholders recently, is that the system could handle renewable power generation capacity at a 30 …
Pjm Region Could Handle Substantially More Renewable Generation, Study Says Read More »
[Series header: On the Morning of October 15 the Institute for Energy Research in Washington DC released a report I’d written about the federal government’s wind power cost estimates. (Links available here.) Later that day Michael Goggin of the American Wind Energy Association, the lobbying organization in Washington DC that represents the wind energy industry, …
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