IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v31y2014icp197-202.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reflections on RPI-X regulation in OECD countries

Author

Listed:
  • Mirrlees-Black, Jonathan

Abstract

The form of regulation initially proposed by the Littlechild (1983) report has not only been implemented in UK regulated industries, but has also become a benchmark approach to regulation worldwide. RPI-X has been widely adopted in different industries in OECD countries both to incentivise efficiency and also to support privatisation, and this paper shows the breadth of countries and industries in which it has been applied. It has also contributed to the development of infrastructure as a separate asset class. It is difficult to overstate the long-term impact of the 1983 paper. However, the precise way in which RPI-X regulation is implemented differs widely. On occasions, a price control process is implemented largely because it is a well-respected benchmark approach, but with less appreciation of the intended objectives. Designers of regulatory frameworks would do well to recall the analysis in the original Littlechild paper which highlighted that regulation is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, and successful applications of the framework respect this.

Suggested Citation

  • Mirrlees-Black, Jonathan, 2014. "Reflections on RPI-X regulation in OECD countries," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 197-202.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:31:y:2014:i:c:p:197-202
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2014.09.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095717871400071X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2014.09.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Commission, Productivity, 2011. "Australian’s Urban Water Sector," Inquiry Reports, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia, volume 2, number 55, July.
    2. Kuosmanen, Timo, 2012. "Stochastic semi-nonparametric frontier estimation of electricity distribution networks: Application of the StoNED method in the Finnish regulatory model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 2189-2199.
    3. Stern, Jon, 2014. "The British utility regulation model: Its recent history and future prospects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 162-172.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oduro, Richard A. & Taylor, Peter G., 2023. "Future pathways for energy networks: A review of international experiences in high income countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Surbhi Gupta & Anil Kumar Sharma, 2022. "Evolution of infrastructure as an asset class: a systematic literature review and thematic analysis," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(3), pages 173-200, May.
    3. Kasiri, Mohammadreza & Mirnezami, Seyed Reza, 2023. "How can the compensation structure of Iran's natural gas distribution services be modified based on incentive-based regulations?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    4. Avdasheva, Svetlana & Gimadi, Victoria, 2019. "Investor response to tariff options under regulation by contract: Evidence from Russian heating concessions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 67-74.
    5. Stephen Hall & Andrew EG Jonas & Simon Shepherd & Zia Wadud, 2019. "The smart grid as commons: Exploring alternatives to infrastructure financialisation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1386-1403, May.
    6. Thiago Victorino & Carlos Rosano Peña, 2023. "The Development of Efficiency Analysis in Transportation Systems: A Bibliometric and Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-32, June.
    7. Heims, Eva M. & Lodge, Martin, 2018. "Customer engagement in UK water regulation: towards a collaborative regulatory state?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87258, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Christopher F. Parmeter & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2022. "Stochastic Frontier Analysis: Foundations and Advances I," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 8, pages 331-370, Springer.
    2. Kuosmanen, Timo & Johnson, Andrew, 2017. "Modeling joint production of multiple outputs in StoNED: Directional distance function approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(2), pages 792-801.
    3. Nicholas Pawsey & Lin Crase, 2013. "The Mystique of Water Pricing and Accounting," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(3), pages 328-339, September.
    4. Johnstone, David & Havyatt, David, 2022. "Sophistry and high electricity prices in Australia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Julia Schaefer & Marcel Clermont, 2018. "Stochastic non-smooth envelopment of data for multi-dimensional output," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 139-154, December.
    6. Rita, Rui & Marques, Vitor & Bárbara, Diogo & Chaves, Inês & Macedo, Pedro & Moutinho, Victor & Pereira, Mariana, 2023. "Crossing non-parametric and parametric techniques for measuring the efficiency: Evidence from 65 European electricity Distribution System Operators," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    7. Andor, Mark A. & Parmeter, Christopher & Sommer, Stephan, 2019. "Combining uncertainty with uncertainty to get certainty? Efficiency analysis for regulation purposes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 240-252.
    8. Lin, Sheng-Wei & Lu, Wen-Min, 2024. "A comparison of chance-constrained data envelopment analysis, stochastic nonparametric envelopment of data and bootstrap method: A case study of cultural regeneration performance of cities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 316(3), pages 1179-1191.
    9. Rødseth, Kenneth Løvold, 2023. "Noise pollution of container handling: External and abatement costs and environmental efficiency," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 82-93.
    10. Agrell, Per J. & Brea-Solís, Humberto, 2017. "Capturing heterogeneity in electricity distribution operations: A critical review of latent class modelling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 361-372.
    11. Llorca, Manuel & Orea, Luis & Pollitt, Michael G., 2016. "Efficiency and environmental factors in the US electricity transmission industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 234-246.
    12. Papadopoulos, Alecos & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2023. "A specification test for the composed error term in the stochastic frontier model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    13. Russ Kashian & Nicholas Lovett & Yuhan Xue, 2020. "Has the affordable care act affected health care efficiency?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 193-233, December.
    14. Cristina Polo & Julián Ramajo & Alejandro Ricci‐Risquete, 2021. "A stochastic semi‐non‐parametric analysis of regional efficiency in the European Union," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 7-24, February.
    15. Mark Andor & Frederik Hesse, 2014. "The StoNED age: the departure into a new era of efficiency analysis? A monte carlo comparison of StoNED and the “oldies” (SFA and DEA)," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 85-109, February.
    16. Papadopoulos, Alecos & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2021. "Type II failure and specification testing in the Stochastic Frontier Model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 293(3), pages 990-1001.
    17. Timo Kuosmanen & Sheng Dai, 2023. "Modeling economies of scope in joint production: Convex regression of input distance function," Papers 2311.11637, arXiv.org.
    18. Johnson, Andrew L. & Kuosmanen, Timo, 2012. "One-stage and two-stage DEA estimation of the effects of contextual variables," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 220(2), pages 559-570.
    19. Haleh Delnava & Kristiaan Kerstens & Timo Kuosmanen & Zhiyang Shen, 2024. "Semi-parametric Estimation of Convex and Nonconvex By-Production Technologies," Working Papers 2024-EQM-02, IESEG School of Management.
    20. Vesterberg, Mattias & Zhou, Wenchao & Lundgren, Tommy, 2021. "Wind of change: Small-scale electricity production and distribution-grid efficiency in Sweden," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:31:y:2014:i:c:p:197-202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.