Incentives Regulations And Plans

The class is theory of price regulation assumed that the regulator knows the fIrm's costs, the key piece of information that enables regulators to pressure fmns to choose appropriate behaviors. The "regulatory problem" was reduced to a mere pricing problem: the regulator's goal was to align price with marginal cost, subject to the constraint that revenues must cover costs. Elegant and important insights ensued. The most important was that regulation was inevitably a struggle to achieve second-best outcomes. (Ramsey pricing was a splendid example. ) Reality proved harsh to regulatory theory. The fmn's costs are by no means known to the regulator. At best, the regulator may know how much is currently spent to provide services, but hardly what costs would be if the fmn vigorously pursued effIciency. Even if the current cost curve were known to the regulator, technologies change so swiftly that today's costs are a very poor indicator of tomorrow's, and those are the costs that will determine the fIrm's future decisions. With the burgeoning attention to information considerations and game theory in economics, the regulator's problem of eliciting host information about cost has received considerable attention. In most cases, however, it has been in context that are both static and stylized; such analyses rarely capture many of the essential elements of real world regulatory issues. This volume represents a fresh approach. It reflects Glenn Blackmon's twin strengths, a keen analytic mind and important experience in the regulatory arena.

"The book focuses on the six major topics discussed at the conference: containing sprawl, mixed use development, transit oriented development, affordable housing, healthy urban designs and marketing smarter growth."--Publisher.

The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and commercial banking. However, recent concerns about market power in restructured electricity markets, airline industry instability amid chronic financial stress, and the challenges created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which allowed commercial banks to participate in investment banking, have led to calls for renewed market intervention. Economic Regulation and Its Reform collects research by a group of distinguished scholars who explore these and other issues surrounding government economic intervention. Determining the consequences of such intervention requires a careful assessment of the costs and benefits of imperfect regulation. Moreover, government interventions may take a variety of forms, from relatively nonintrusive performance-based regulations to more aggressive antitrust and competition policies and barriers to entry. This volume introduces the key issues surrounding economic regulation, provides an assessment of the economic effects of regulatory reforms over the past three decades, and examines how these insights bear on some of today’s most significant concerns in regulatory policy.

Incentive zoning has received renewed attention as communities implement smart growth principles into planning and development processes. Incentive zoning allows a developer to build a larger, higher-density project than would be permitted under existing zoning. In exchange, the developer provides something that is in the community's interest that would not otherwise be required (e.g., open space, plazas, arcades, etc.). The common types of community benefits or amenities for which state and local governments have devised incentive programs are urban design, human services (including affordable housing), and transit access. This report provides historical perspective, summarizes state enabling legislation, and describes the key substantive and legal issues local governments must address in crafting such regulations. Case studies from Arlington County (Virginia), Minneapolis, and Seattle demonstrate how incentives can be used to achieve smart growth objectives. The report also provides principles to guide model legislation for zoning and affordable housing incentives.

This book proposes a new approach to the government regulation of utilities. Arguing that traditional command-and-control regulation does not encourage efficient performance, Strasser and Kohler advocate the use of an incentive-based regulatory system and offer a practical, realistic strategy for the successful implementation of such plans within the context of utility regulation. The analysis is supported by a comprehensive survey of the relevant legal materials, an overview of the literature on organization theory and institutional economics, and a survey of the latest thinking on how incentives can most effectively be paid. Strasser and Kohler begin by identifying problems associated with current regulatory techniques, demonstrating that disincentives are often built into the regulatory system. When that system has tried incentives, the authors show they have been applied in an ad hoc manner, further exacerbating the problem. In presenting the case for incentive-based regulation, the authors review the history of comprehensive incentive plans, look at what organization theory can teach us about using incentives as a regulatory strategy, and explore the effective use of incentive compensation by nonregulated companies. Strasser and Kohler then develop a strategy for implementing incentive plans in regulated utilities, showing that, in order to work, the plans must include the installation of clearly defined bonuses and penalties, specific standards of performance, the payment of bonuses to managers rather than shareholders, and reliable and complete measures of company performance. Policymakers, economists, public utility regulators, and attorneys involved in the complex arena of utility regulation will find Regulating Utilities with Management Incentives indispensable reading.

This book is based on two seminars held at Rutgers on October 22, 1993, and May 6, 1994 entitled `Incentive Regulation for Public Utilities'. These contributions by leading scholars and practitioners represent some of the best new research in public utility economics and include topics such as the theory of incentive regulation, dynamic pricing, transfer pricing, issues in law and economics, pricing priority service, and energy utility resource planning.

Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans (US Internal Revenue Service Regulation) (IRS) (2018 Edition) The Law Library presents the complete text of the Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans (US Internal Revenue Service Regulation) (IRS) (2018 Edition). Updated as of May 29, 2018 This document contains final regulations, consistent with the Affordable Care Act, regarding nondiscriminatory wellness programs in group health coverage. Specifically, these final regulations increase the maximum permissible reward under a health-contingent wellness program offered in connection with a group health plan (and any related health insurance coverage) from 20 percent to 30 percent of the cost of coverage. The final regulations further increase the maximum permissible reward to 50 percent for wellness programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use. These regulations also include other clarifications regarding the reasonable design of health-contingent wellness programs and the reasonable alternatives they must offer in order to avoid prohibited discrimination. This book contains: - The complete text of the Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans (US Internal Revenue Service Regulation) (IRS) (2018 Edition) - A table of contents with the page number of each section

Institutions and Incentives in Regulatory Science explores fundamental problems with regulatory science in the environmental and natural resource law field. Each chapter covers a variety of natural resource and regulatory areas, ranging from climate change to endangered species protection and traditional health-based environmental regulation. Regulatory laws and institutions themselves strongly influence the direction of scientific research by creating a system of rewards and penalties for science. As a consequence, regulatory laws or institutions that are designed naively end up incentivizing scientists to generate and then publish only those results that further the substantive regulatory goals preferred by the scientists. By relying so heavily on science to dictate policy, regulatory laws and institutions encourage scientists to use their assessment of the state of the science to further their own preferred scientific and regulatory policy agendas. Additionally, many environmental and natural resource regulatory agencies have been instructed by legislatures to rely heavily upon science in their rulemaking. In areas of rapidly evolving science, regulatory agencies are inevitably looking for scientific consensus prematurely, before the scientific process has worked through competing hypotheses and evidence. The contributors in this volume address how institutions for regulatory science should be designed in light of the inevitable misfit between the political or legal demand for regulatory action and the actual state of evolving scientific knowledge.

Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans (US Employee Benefits Security Administration Regulation) (EBSA) (2018 Edition) The Law Library presents the complete text of the Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans (US Employee Benefits Security Administration Regulation) (EBSA) (2018 Edition). Updated as of May 29, 2018 This document contains final regulations, consistent with the Affordable Care Act, regarding nondiscriminatory wellness programs in group health coverage. Specifically, these final regulations increase the maximum permissible reward under a health-contingent wellness program offered in connection with a group health plan (and any related health insurance coverage) from 20 percent to 30 percent of the cost of coverage. The final regulations further increase the maximum permissible reward to 50 percent for wellness programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use. These regulations also include other clarifications regarding the reasonable design of health-contingent wellness programs and the reasonable alternatives they must offer in order to avoid prohibited discrimination. This book contains: - The complete text of the Incentives for Nondiscriminatory Wellness Programs in Group Health Plans (US Employee Benefits Security Administration Regulation) (EBSA) (2018 Edition) - A table of contents with the page number of each section