Corporate Incentives and Nuclear Safety

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hausman, Catherine
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.6.3.178
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 178-206
• 关键词: electricity markets; airline safety; power-plants; industry; deregulation; COMPETITION; EFFICIENCY; IMPACT

摘要

Following electricity market restructuring, approximately half of all commercial US nuclear power reactors were sold by price-regulated public utilities to independent power producers. At the time of the sales, some policymakers raised concerns that these corporations would ignore safety. Others claimed that the sales would bring improved reactor management, with positive effects on safety. Using data on various safety measures and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, I find that safety improved following ownership transfers and the removal of price regulations. Generation increased, and this does not appear to have come at the cost of public safety.