Structural Changes in the U.S. Electric Utility Industry and the Scarcity Rent of Coal

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Applied Economics

Volume

23

Publication Date

1991

First Page

57

Last Page

63

Abstract

Previous studies show that environmental regulations have caused significant decline in productivity and increases in the cost of electricity generation for the US coal-fired electric utilities. No analysis, thus far, measures the effect of such productivity decline on the scarcity rent of coal in-use. This paper shows that due to environmental regulations the basic cost structure of the coal-fired electric utilities have undergone a structural change resulting in increases in the scarcity rent of coal in-use.

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