The Natural Gas Market: Sixty Years of Regulation and Deregulation

Description

Over the past six decades federal regulatory agencies have attempted different strategies to regulate the natural gas industry in the United States. All have been unsuccessful, resulting in nationwide gas shortages or massive gas surpluses and costing the nation scores of billions of dollars. In addition, partial deregulation has led the regulatory agency to become more involved in controlling individual transactions among gas producers, distributors, and consumers. In this important book, Paul MacAvoy demonstrates that no affected group has gained from these experiments in public control and that all participants would gain from complete deregulation. Although losses have declined with partial deregulation in recent years, current regulatory practices still limit the growth of supply through the transmission system. MacAvoy’s history of the regulation of natural gas is a cautionary tale for other natural resource or network industries that are regulated or are about to be regulated. Contents Figures Tables Preface Chapter 1. An Introduction to Regulation and the Performance of Gas Markets Chapter 2. A Model of Natural Gas Market Wellhead Prices and Quantities Chapter 3. The Regulation of Gas Field Contracts and the Resulting Gains and Losses from Market Performance Chapter 4. The Partial Deregulation of Transportation and the Creation of a Single North American Gas Market Chapter 5. The Unbundling of Local Gas Retail Markets Chapter 6. Partial Deregulation and the Future Performance of Gas Markets Notes References Index