Suchergebnisse

This paper investigates political uncertainty as a source of regulatory risk. It shows that political parties have incentives to reduce regulatory risk actively: Mutually beneficial preelectoral agreements that reduce regulatory risk always exist. Agreements that fully eliminate it exist when political divergence is small or electoral uncertainty is appropriately skewed. These results follow from a fluctuation effect of regulatory risk that hurts parties and an outputexpansion effect that benefits at most one party. Due to commitment problems, regulatory agencies with some degree of political independence are needed to implement preelectoral agreements.

The paper provides a tractable, analytical framework to study regulatory risk. Regulatory risk is captured by uncertainty about the policy variables in the regulator's objective function: weights attached to profits and costs of public funds. Results are as follows: 1) The regulator's reaction to regulatory risk depends on the curvature of aggregate demand. 2) It yields a positive information rent effect exactly when demand is convex. 3) Firms benefit from regulatory risk exactly when demand is convex. 4) Consumers' risk preferences tend to contradict the firm's. 5) Benevolent regulators always prefer regulatory risk and these preferences may contradict both the firm's and consumers'.

AbstractA multi‐product monopolist sells sequentially to a buyer who privately learns his valuations. Using big data, the monopolist learns the intertemporal correlation of the buyer's valuations. Perfect price discrimination is generally unattainable—even when the seller learns the correlation perfectly, has full commitment, and in the limit where the consumption good about which the buyer has ex ante private information becomes insignificant. This impossibility is due to informational externalities that require information rents for the buyer's later consumption. These rents induce upward and downward distortions, violating the generalized no distortion at the top principle of dynamic mechanism design.

Crowdfunding provides innovation in enabling entrepreneurs to contract with consumers before investment. Under aggregate demand uncertainty, this improves screening for valuable projects. Entrepreneurial moral hazard and private cost information threatens this benefit. Crowdfunding's after-markets enable consumers to actively implement deferred payments and thereby manage moral hazard. Popular crowdfunding platforms offer schemes that allow consumers to do so through conditional pledging behavior. Efficiency is sustainable only if expected returns exceed an agency cost associated with the entrepreneurial incentive problems. By reducing demand uncertainty, crowdfunding promotes welfare and complements traditional entrepreneurial financing, which focuses on controlling moral hazard. (JEL D21, D81, D82, D86, G32, L26)

Uncertainty in election outcomes generates politically induced regulatory risk. For monopoly regulation, political parties\' risk attitudes towards such risk depend on a fluctuation effect that hurts both parties and an output--expansion effect that benefits at least one party. Irrespective of the parties\' risk attitudes, political parties have incentives to negotiate away regulatory risk by pre-electoral bargaining. Pareto-efficient bargaining outcomes fully eliminate regulatory risk and are attainable through institutionalizing independent regulatory agencies with a specific objective. Key aspects of the regulatory overhaul of the US Postal system in 1970 are argued to be consistent with these results.

This paper investigates political uncertainty as a source of regulatory risk. It shows that political parties have incentives to reduce regulatory risk actively: Mutually beneficial pre-electoral agreements that reduce regulatory risk always exist. Agreements that fully eliminate it exist when political divergence is small or electoral uncertainty is appropriately skewed. These results follow from a fluctuation effect of regulatory risk that hurts parties and an output-expansion effect that benefits at most one party. Due to commitment problems, regulatory agencies with some degree of political independence are needed to implement pre-electoral agreements.

The paper investigates political uncertainty as a source of regulatory risk. It shows that political parties have incentives to reduce regulatory risk actively: Mutually beneficial pre-electoral agreements that reduce regulatory risk always exist and fully eliminate it when political divergence is small or electoral uncertainty is appropriately skewed. These results follow from a fluctuation effect of regulatory risk that hurts both parties and an output-expansion effect that benefits at most one party. Due to commitment problems, politically independent regulatory agencies are needed to implement pre-electoral agreements. Optimal delegation may require only partial rather than full political independence.

The paper provides a tractable, analytical framework to study regulatory risk. Regulatory risk is captured by uncertainty about the policy variables in the regulator's objective function: weights attached to profits and costs of public funds. Results are as follows: 1) The regulator's reaction to regulatory risk depends on the curvature of aggregate demand. 2) It yields a positive information rent effect exactly when demand is convex. 3) Firms benefit from regulatory risk exactly when demand is convex. 4) Consumers' risk preferences tend to contradict the firm's. 5) Benevolent regulators always prefer regulatory risk and these preferences may contradict both the firm's and consumers'.

I investigate the argument that, in a twoparty system with different regulatory objectives, political uncertainty generates regulatory risk. I show that this risk has a fluctuation effect that hurts both parties and an outputexpansion effect that benefits one party. Consequently, at least one party dislikes regulatory risk. Moreover, both political parties gain from eliminating regulatory risk when political divergence is small or the winning probability of the regulatoryriskaverse party is not too large. Because of a commitment problem, direct political bargaining is insufficient to eliminate regulatory risk. Politically independent regulatory agencies solve this commitment problem.

I investigate the argument that, in a two–party system with different regulatory objectives, political uncertainty generates regulatory risk. I show that this risk has a fluctuation effect that hurts both parties and an output–expansion effect that benefits one party. Consequently, at least one party dislikes regulatory risk. Moreover, both political parties gain from eliminating regulatory risk when political divergence is small or the winning probability of the regulatory–risk–averse party is not too large. Because of a commitment problem, direct political bargaining is insufficient to eliminate regulatory risk. Politically independent regulatory agencies solve this commitment problem.