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Power to the People: Does Ownership Type Influence Electricity Service?

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  • Richard T. Boylan
Abstract
After storm-related power outages, many have recommended municipalizing investor-owned utilities, claiming that profit-making utilities have insufficient incentive to prepare for storms. I provide empirical evidence that municipal utilities spend more on maintenance of their distribution network than investor-owned utilities. Nonetheless, I find that storms significantly disrupt electricity consumption in areas served by municipal utilities but do not disrupt areas served by investor-owned utilities. These results are based on a stratified random sample of 241 investor-owned, 96 cooperative, and 94 municipal utilities in the United States between 1999 and 2012. I conclude that municipal utilities' in-efficiencies are more important in causing power outages than investor-owned utilities' disincentives to spend on maintenance.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard T. Boylan, 2016. "Power to the People: Does Ownership Type Influence Electricity Service?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 441-476.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/687755
    DOI: 10.1086/687755
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    Cited by:

    1. Tin Cheuk Leung & Kwok Ping Ping & Kevin K. Tsui, 2019. "What can deregulators deregulate? The case of electricity," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 1-32, August.
    2. Xie, Bai-Chen & Zhang, Zhen-Jiang & Anaya, Karim L., 2021. "Has the unbundling reform improved the service efficiency of China's power grid firms?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    3. Astrid Cullmann & Maria Nieswand & Julia Rechlitz, 2017. "Productive Efficiency and Ownership When Market Restructuring Affects Production Technologies," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1641, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Xie, Bai-Chen & Ni, Kang-Kang & O'Neill, Eoghan & Li, Hong-Zhou, 2021. "The scale effect in China's power grid sector from the perspective of malmquist total factor productivity analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Meade, Richard & Söderberg, Magnus, 2020. "Is welfare higher when utilities are owned by customers instead of investors? Evidence from electricity distribution in New Zealand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    6. Englmaier, Florian & Roider, Andreas & Stowasser, Till & Hinreiner, Lisa, 2017. "Power Politics: Electoral Cycles in German Electricity Prices," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168267, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Daniel Thompson & Gianluca Pescaroli, 2024. "Financing electricity resilience in local communities: a review of the literature," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 740-762, September.
    8. Richard Meade & Magnus Soderberg, 2017. "Welfare-Maximising Investors? – Utility Firm Performance with Heterogeneous Quality Preferences and Endogenous Ownership," Working Papers 2017-09, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.

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