Regulation with "20-20 Hindsight": Least-Cost Rules and Variable Costs
研究了监管机构事后审查企业投入决策（即“事后诸葛亮”式监管）的影响，发现若一致应用于利润监管下的可变要素合同，企业会增加资本存量并更多依赖现货市场购买，利润下降但消费者福利影响不确定；若作为随机价格上限，则可引导可变投入选择实现预期成本最小化。
Regulators sometimes review a regulated firm's input decisions in retrospect (i.e., with "20-20 hindsight") and punish bad outcomes rather than bad decisions. When such practices are applied consistently to contracts for variable factors in a regime with profit regulation, the firm increases its capital stock and relies more heavily on spot market purchases for its variable inputs; the firm's profits are reduced, but welfare effects on consumers are ambiguous. If applied as a type of "stochastic price cap" regulation, however, hindsight review can induce variable input choices that minimize expected costs. Copyright 1992 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.