Utilities and regulated returns

Business models

Capital deployed against an allowed rate of return. The history is better than the current-practice literature.

8 books

Start here

  1. Empires of LightJill Jonnes, 2003
  2. The GridGretchen Bakke, 2016
  3. Prophets of RegulationThomas K. McCraw, 1984
  4. The Economics of RegulationAlfred E. Kahn, 1970

Books 8

The Economics of Regulation
T1 The Economics of Regulation
Alfred E. Kahn · 1970 · The standard theory of rate base, allowed return and marginal-cost pricing.
Open Library
Networks of Power
T1 Networks of Power
Thomas P. Hughes · 1983 · The classic history of electrification as a system business.
Open Library
Prophets of Regulation
T1 Prophets of Regulation
Thomas K. McCraw · 1984 · Pulitzer history of the people who built American utility regulation.
Open Library
Principles of Public Utility Rates
T2 Principles of Public Utility Rates
James C. Bonbright · 1961 · The rate-making reference: how an allowed return is actually set.
Open Library
Empires of Light
T2 Empires of Light
Jill Jonnes · 2003 · Edison, Westinghouse, Tesla and the birth of the utility business.
Open Library
Chris Dixon
Insull
T3 Insull
Forrest McDonald · 1962 · The man who invented the regulated-return utility bargain, and the holding company that killed him.
Open Library
Smart Power
T3 Smart Power
Peter Fox-Penner · 2010 · Utility business models after the regulated-growth era.
Open Library
The Grid
T3 The Grid
Gretchen Bakke · 2016 · Why the regulated grid's economics are breaking.
Open Library
Bill Gates