Regulating mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities : industry concentration and corporate complication / Scott Hempling (attorney, and adjunct professor, Georgetown University Law Center, US).
2020
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Author
Title
Regulating mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities : industry concentration and corporate complication / Scott Hempling (attorney, and adjunct professor, Georgetown University Law Center, US).
Added Corporate Author
Imprint
Northampton : Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.
Description
1 online resource (576 pages)
Formatted Contents Note
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.
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.
Summary
"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 number of local, independent utilities. Mostly debt-financed, these transactions have converted retiree-suitable investments into subsidiaries of geographically scattered conglomerates. Written by one of the U.S.'s leading regulatory thinkers-a litigating attorney, regulatory advisor, expert witness and law professor-this book combines legal, accounting, economic and financial analysis with insights from the dynamic field of behavioral economics. With a clear assessment of the 30-year march of U.S. electricity mergers, the author describes the economic losses that result when merger promoters and their transactions face neither the discipline of competition nor the rigors of regulation. This work is essential reading for regulatory practitioners, consumer advocates and investment advisors-as well as citizens concerned with concentration of economic power. The principles explored are relevant anywhere regulated utility monopolies have the legal right to merge, acquire or be acquired"-- Provided by publisher.
Note
Includes index.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references.
Source of Description
Description based on print record.
Location
www
Linked Resources
Alternate Title
Elgaronline.
Language
English
ISBN
9781839109461 (e-book)
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