The Impact of Agency Costs on Regulator Compensation and the Size of Electric Utility Commissions

Franklin Mixon

The Energy Journal, 2001, vol. 22, issue 2, 17-34

Abstract: The current study examines the impact of the selection of electric utilities regulators on their compensation and the size of the regulatory commissions they lead. Much like the CEOs of regulated enterprises, managers of politically supported enterprises and bureaucracies might be expected to pursue increases in the size of administration budgets, the number of support staff and compensation packages (i.e., engage in expense preference behavior). In the case of public utility commissions, the principal-agent model used to describe private firms applies. However, within politically-appointed regulatory regimes, utilities commissioners are the agents of politicians instead of the population at large. In elected regimes, regulators are the agents of the population at large. Statistical models presented in this paper point toward greater levels of expense preference behavior (or expected utility maximization) by commissions (ers) within appointed regulatory regimes, as public choice models and models of the firm would suggest.

Keywords: Electricity industry; electric utility commissions; regulation; regulator compensation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol22-No2-2 (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Impact of Agency Costs on Regulator Compensation and the Size of Electric Utility Commissions (2001)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:enejou:v:22:y:2001:i:2:p:17-34

DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol22-No2-2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Energy Journal
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().