IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v23y2002i1p97-116.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Le Tarif Vert Retrouvé: The Marginal Cost Concept and the Pricing of Electricity in Britain and France, 1945-1970

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Chick

Abstract

This article compares the development of marginal cost pricing in the French and UK nationalised electricity industries between 1945 and 1970. Asking why French ‘marginaliste’ economists like Allais and Boiteux enjoyed more influence than their UK counterparts like Meade, political decisions concerning the organisation of the electricity industries, the differing influence of industrial and consumer interests, and the early postwar choices of hydro and thermal investment in France, are advanced as explanations. In the UK, the Treasury pushed nationalised industries towards marginal cost pricing, requiring them to earn rates of return on existing investment and to subject the proposed investment to test discount rates during the 1960s. The paper closes by arguing that these different routes to marginal cost pricing in the French and UK nationalised electricity industries had significant effects on later government and public attitudes towards the privatisation and liberalisation of the national electricity industry and market.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Chick, 2002. "Le Tarif Vert Retrouvé: The Marginal Cost Concept and the Pricing of Electricity in Britain and France, 1945-1970," The Energy Journal, , vol. 23(1), pages 97-116, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:23:y:2002:i:1:p:97-116
    DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol23-No1-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol23-No1-5
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol23-No1-5?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Chick, 1990. "Governments, Industries and Markets," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 85.
    2. Leslie Hannah, 1982. "Engineers, Managers and Politicians," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-03446-8, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Allan, Grant & Eromenko, Igor & McGregor, Peter & Swales, Kim, 2010. "The regional electricity generation mix in Scotland: A portfolio selection approach," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-42, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    2. Roger Fouquet & Peter J.G. Pearson, 2006. "Seven Centuries of Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000)," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 139-178.
    3. Kikkawa, Takeo & 橘川, 武郎, 2012. "The History Of Japan'S Electric Power Industry Before World War Ii," Hitotsubashi Journal of commerce and management, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 46(1), pages 1-16, October.
    4. John Constable & Lee Moroney, 2017. "Economic hazards of a forced energy transition: inferences from the UK’s renewable energy and climate strategy," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 171-192, June.
    5. Callaghan, Helen, 2012. "Economic nationalism, network-based coordination, and the market for corporate control: Motives for political resistance to foreign takeovers," MPIfG Discussion Paper 12/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Danny MacKinnon & Stuart Dawley & Markus Steen & Max-Peter Menzel & Asbjørn Karlsen & Pascal Sommer & Gard Hopsdal Hansen & Håkon Endresen Normann, 2018. "Path creation, global production networks and regional development: a comparative international analysis of the offshore wind sector," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1810, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Feb 2018.
    7. Turnheim, Bruno & Geels, Frank W., 2012. "Regime destabilisation as the flipside of energy transitions: Lessons from the history of the British coal industry (1913–1997)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 35-49.
    8. Robert Millward, 2010. "The family silver, business efficiency and the City, 1970-1987," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(1), pages 169-185.
    9. Martin Chick, 2006. "The marginalist approach and the making of fuel policy in France and Britain, 1945–72," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(1), pages 143-167, February.
    10. Peter Armstrong, 1987. "Engineers, Management and Trust," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 1(4), pages 421-440, December.
    11. Höpner, Martin, 2007. "Coordination and organization: The two dimensions of nonliberal capitalism," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/12, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    12. Jim Tomlinson, 1993. "Mr Attlee's supply-side socialism," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, February.

    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:sae:enejou:v:23:y:2002:i:1:p:97-116. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.