The 2001-3 electricity distribution price control review in the Netherlands: regulatory process and consumer welfare

The outcome of the first electricity distribution price control review in The Netherlands did not deliver the savings initially suggested by the regulator (DTe). During the course of the first 3-year regulatory period, DTe revised the X-Factors four times. The impact on tariffs has been substantial. DTe initially announced in 2000 that savings would be equivalent to 25% of electric distribution revenues ( $${\texttt{C}\!\!\!\rule[2.3pt]{.4em}{.3pt}\!\!\rule[3.3pt]{. 4em}{.3pt}}$$ 2bn). However, final X-Factors in May 2003 resulted in savings of 10% of revenues. The total cost to consumers—when compared to the most probable outcome—has been $${\texttt{C}\!\!\!\rule[2.3pt]{.4em}{.3pt}\!\!\rule[3.3pt]{. 4em}{.3pt}}$$ 140 mln (7% of total revenues). Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Regulation, Benchmarking, Consumer welfare, Regulatory process, X-Factor, D42, D60, K2, L5,

Mesauring quantity-quality trade-offs in regulation: The Brazilian freigth railways case

The quantity vs. quality trade-offs in network industries are well known from the theoretical literature and have been the subject of many empirical assessments, although mostly for the telecoms and energy sectors. The purpose of this paper is to expand the evidence for the railway sector by documenting the importance of this trade-off in the context of the Brazilian freight railway industry reform, the first example of a railway sector in which tariff revisions are subject to joint output and quality performance indicators. The analysis is based on the calculation of the Malmquist productivity index proposed byFäre et al. (1995). The decomposable nature of this total factor productivity (TFP) index reveals the prevalence of quantity-quality trade-offs up to the end of the reform period, but a positive correlation between them during the period just afterwards. This type of information would certainly be useful for regulation purposes, particularly as an alternative way of taking into account quality without introducing complex, and very often ineffective, penalty schemes.FLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe