PUC Autonomy and Policy Innovation: Local Telephone Competition in Arkansas and New York

TL;DR

This paper examines how the structural environment and countervailing forces influence the autonomy of state public utility commissions in implementing local telephone competition policies, highlighting differences between Arkansas and New York.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of PUC autonomy and policy innovation, emphasizing the role of external forces in shaping regulatory responses.

Findings

Presence of countervailing forces increases PUC autonomy.

Arkansas exhibits more regulatory flexibility than New York.

Structural factors significantly influence policy innovation capacity.

Abstract

In the pre-divestiture era, the regulatory environment in the U.S. was fairly uniform and harmonious with the FCC setting the course and the accommodative state PUCs making corresponding changes in their own policies. The divestiture fractured this monolithic system as it forced the PUCs to respond to new forces unleashed in their own backyards. Soon there was great diversity in the overall regulatory landscape. Within this new environment, there is considerable disparity among the PUCs in terms of their ability to implement new ideas. This paper seeks to understand the structural factors that influence the latitude of regulatory action by PUCs via a comparative study of local telephone competition policy making in Arkansas and New York. The analysis suggests that the presence or absence of countervailing forces determines the relative autonomy the PUCs enjoy and thereby their ability to introduce new ideas into their states.