Price Caps and Output Floors: A Comparison of Simple Regulatory Rules
研究了一种名为“产量下限”的监管机制，要求受监管企业提供给定产量，与价格上限监管相比，在存在竞争性边缘企业时能带来更低价格和更强成本削减激励，但可能遭到行业抵制。
We study in this paper a simple alternative to price cap regulation. The mechanism, which we label ‘output floor’ regulation, requires the regulated firm to supply a given level of output. This rule is as simple as price cap regulation, and performs identically when the regulated firm is a natural monopoly; however, we show that, in the presence of a competitive fringe, output floor regulation yields lower prices and stronger incentives for cost reduction. Its introduction, however, is likely to be resisted by the industry, since it lowers managerial utility and shareholders’ profits.