Economic surplus
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The naiveté of the English! They have voted for Brexit. Now the debate has turned to the ‘conditions’ of exit. But the English are talking as if they will have a choice. They won’t. Let me use a bit of…
Want to check if Australia’s utility regulation is working? To highlight the problems, you need look no further than the recent decisions by the Australian Competition Tribunal on four electricity network…
Payment card fees are ridiculously complex. When you pay by a card, the merchant pays a fee to its bank. Sometimes it will pass some, all, or more of the fee through to you, the customer, through a surcharge…
The ACCC has settled the ‘Informed Sources’ case and this will help empower petrol customers. How does this help petrol buyers? Let’s start with the economics. If businesses exchange price information…
Economists love Uber’s surge pricing. But it is doomed, because customers hate it. Why? Surge pricing occurs when the supply and demand for Uber vehicles becomes unbalanced, for example, due to inclement…
Technological change and the move to renewable energy is creating a series of challenges to the electricity sector in Australia. Here are three of them. Managing the generation transition In November this…
Credit card surcharging is in the news. Apparently consumers are going to benefit by new surcharge limits that will be imposed on retailers. But what is surcharging? And why does it need limits? And is…
Over time, a successful regulator makes themselves redundant. The regulator is not needed when competition in the market is working. But the path away from regulation and towards competition is uncertain…
I logged into myGov last night. This is the federal government website that brings all your government services together. Tax, medicare, centrelink and so on. In my less than 24 hour experience, it seems…
Smart electricity meters are a great idea. They offer opportunities for consumers and electricity retailers to develop innovative programs to save both power and money. Tied into smart appliances and the…