文章基本信息

标题：Idiosyncratic Risk and the Cost of Capital – The Case of Electricity Networks
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作者：Dominik Schober
期刊名称：Discussion Paper / Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
出版年度：2014
出版社：Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
摘要：We analyze the treatment and impact of idiosyncratic or firm-specific risk in regulation. Regulatory authorities regularly ignore firm-specific characteristics, such as size or asset ages, implying different risk exposure in incentive regulation. In contrast, it is common to apply only a single benchmark, the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), uniformly to all firms. This will lead to implicit discrimination. We combine models of firm-specific risk, liquidity management and regulatory rate setting to investigate impacts on capital costs. We focus on the example of the impact of component failures for electricity network operators. In a simulation model for Germany, we find that capital costs increase by approximately 0.2 to 3.0 percentage points depending on the size of the firm (in the range of 3% to 40% of total cost of capital). Regulation of monopolistic bottlenecks should take these risks into account to avoid implicit discrimination.
关键词：Idiosyncratic/firm-specific risk; discrimination; incentive-based and quality regulation; liquidity management; size effects; electricity networks