Can Utility Commissions Improve on Environmental Regulations?
利用次优框架，分析了公用事业委员会在资源选择、调度和定价决策中，通过调整私人成本与社会成本的差异，能否在现有环境法规基础上进一步改善社会福利。
Using a second best framework, we determine the situations in which Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) can conceivably improve on existing environmental regulations. For resource choice decisions, PUCs can improve on welfare by adjusting the private costs associated with each option by the difference between the total external costs of that option and any pollution taxes or fees that would be paid were the resource developed. In regulating dispatch and pricing decisions, PUCs can increase welfare by taking into account any difference between a power plant's marginal private cost and its marginal social cost as constrained by the environmental regulations.