{"title":"Electricity Market Restructuring and Retail Rates","authors":"K. Rose, Brittany L. Tarufelli, G. Upton","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3660974","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3660974","url":null,"abstract":"State-regulated investor-owned utilities serve over 70 percent of electricity to final end-use retail consumers in the U.S. Prior to the 1990s, all states used a “cost of service (COS)” regulation regime in which investor-owned utilities were allowed to recover prudently incurred costs plus a rate of return on capital expenditures. From 1996-2000, some states passed electricity market “restructuring” that, over time, required utilities to separate the generation portion of their operations and allowed customers to purchase power from third party providers. This is commonly referred to as “retail choice.” This empirical research examines the effect of restructuring on electricity prices to final consumers. While these policies were generally advertised to reduce rates for final customers, in fact rates increased in restructured states relative to plausible counterfactual synthetic controls. We also find evidence that retail rates in restructured states are more responsive to natural gas price changes, the marginal fuel source during the period of analysis.","PeriodicalId":161472,"journal":{"name":"MKTG: Public Policy & Consumer Behavior (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123891873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elena Castellari, Chad Cotti, John M. Gordanier, Orgul D. Ozturk
{"title":"Another Saturday Night: Food Stamp Timing and Monthly Consumption Patterns","authors":"Elena Castellari, Chad Cotti, John M. Gordanier, Orgul D. Ozturk","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2729479","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2729479","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we examine the relationship between the timing of food stamp receipt and consumption patterns. We combine data on state distribution dates of food stamps with scanner data on a panel of households purchases tracked between 2004 and 2011. We find that purchases of a variety of goods are meaningfully higher on receipt days, suggesting that recipients are very impatient. Additionally, and importantly, estimates indicate that when food stamp receipt days fall on weekends, total monthly consumption within the same households is affected. In particular, monthly purchases of beer are higher when food stamps are distributed on weekend rather than in months where benefits are distributed on weekdays. For these households, total beer purchases are between 4 and 5 percent higher in those months. Among households ineligible for food stamps, no effect is identified.","PeriodicalId":161472,"journal":{"name":"MKTG: Public Policy & Consumer Behavior (Topic)","volume":"379 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132312903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}