The Effects of Utility Revenue Decoupling on Electricity Prices
Revenue decoupling (RD) is a regulatory mechanism that allows adjustments of retail electricity rates for the regulated utility to recover its required revenue despite fluctuations in its sales volume. The U.S. utility data in 2000–2019 reveals that RD is associated with about a 4-percentage point higher growth rate of residential electricity prices within the first year after […]
Read MoreThe unintended consequences of increasing returns to scale in geographical economics
Increasing returns to scale is the basis for many powerful results in economics and economic geography. But the limitations of assumptions about returns to scale in economic growth theories are often ignored when applied to geography. This leads to an unintentional bias favoring scale and mistaken conclusions about geography, scale and growth. Alternatively, this bias […]
Read MoreAustralia’s Forgotten Copper Mining Boom: Understanding How South Australia Avoided Dutch Disease, 1843–1850
Abstract: Great Britain established the new colony of South Australia (SA) in 1834, and migration from Britain to the colony began in 1836. After seven turbulent years, the discovery of two large deposits of copper at Kapunda (1843–4) and Burra (1844–5) renewed the colony’s economic prospects. Over the 1845–50 period, SA supplied roughly 9 per […]
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