10th ACCC Regulatory Conference: The Regulation of Infrastructure in a Time of Transition
Queensland, Australia
30 July 2009- 31 July 2009
Hosted By: the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)
NERA Director Greg Houston spoke at this annual conference, which brings together academics, policy makers, regulators, and industry participants to hear and discuss the latest ideas about the theory and practice of economic regulation.
In a conference session involving presentations by both Professor Stephen Littlechild and himself, Mr. Houston explored potential substitutes and complements for the traditional economic regulation of monopoly infrastructure. Mr. Houston opened his presentation by reviewing the original 1983 writings on RPI-X regulation by Professor Littlechild, and drew on early themes in those writings to explain modifications to the scope and application of price cap regulation in Australia and New Zealand over the past 10-15 years. Mr. Houston drew attention to the significant narrowing of the services to which CPI-X regulation is now applied, drawing on experience of the application of light-handed forms of application in airports, ports, gas transmission pipelines, and energy retailing in Australia. He also contrasted this with experiences in New Zealand, where unsuccessful attempts at light-handed forms of regulation for monopoly energy infrastructure are soon to result in the introduction of formal price caps for electricity and gas network services.
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