Search

Discusses two cases arising out of the attempt of the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under the Packers and Stockyards Act to regulate the rates of marketing agencies in the Kansas City Stockyards. Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse and remand the judgment of the lower court to deny injunction; Statutory requirement of a hearing; Administrative duties of a Secretary and an assistant secretary.

This article analyses the power of a public utility to fix its rates and charges in the absence of regulatory legislation. According to the author, during the last half-century, courts have become so accustomed to legislative exercise of the power to regulate rates and charges of public utilities that when they are confronted with a legal failure of the legislative plan, because of unconstitutionality or other reason, there is some danger that fundamentals will be forgotten. An examination of the position at common law as that term is here used is deemed important, for in the absence of applicable legislative regulation it is submitted that the common law applies.

Discusses the establishment of the legislative power to restrict rates charged for services of public utilities in the U.S. Result of a constitutional guaranty of a fair return upon a value based upon present earnings; Variation in the market quotations of railroad stocks from day to day; Fluctuation of actual value.

This paper explores passages of the Act to Regulate Commerce and subsequent legislation directly affecting the published rate in interstate commerce in the U.S. By the first amendment in the act of March 2, 1889, a three days' previous public notice of reductions was required. The same act of 1910 enacted paragraph (11) of the Act to Regulate Commerce, which requires the carrier to furnish a written statement of the rate to the shipper and imposes a penalty of $250 for refusal to state, or misstatement, of the rate, such penalty to accrue to the government and not to the shipper. For the first time, the provisions of the Elkins Act made possible the real enforcement of the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act against discrimination, and rendered all departures from the published rates dangerous to both shippers and carriers. Both shippers and carriers soon perceived the utility of uniform classification, and the Interstate Commerce Commission has constantly brought pressure toward that end. A commodity rate will override a class rate when the two conflict. As soon as the tariff reaches the commission, it is carefully examined to see that it complies in every detail with the rules laid down in the tariff circular of the commission. Under the provisions of the law, it is at once apparent that it was the intention of Congress to make the rate in question the only legal rate, and any departure therefrom a violation of the law.

In the U.S., non-industrial communities the use of water for lawn irrigation is the principal determinant of the timing and magnitudes of the peak loads on the water system. This use not only raises the maximum day and peak-hour rates of water delivery far above what they otherwise would be, but it results in a large seasonal concentration of water consumption. Both effects have important implications for the pricing of water services. The main purpose of this article is to consider these implications with attention directed primarily to the problem of capacity cost allocation. The first part of the article deals with some aspects of water pricing on the basis of an allocation of costs. The purpose here is not to detail the technicalities of a particular price-setting formula but rather to consider the general nature of some of the problems involved. It is apparent, of course, that to determine water prices simply by allocating the costs ignores the interrelation between costs and prices. This interrelation is dealt with in the last half of the article, where one examines some theoretical aspects of water pricing and of non-price rationing.

The article studies the extended scope of regulatory activities of Federal Power Commission to issue some new policies for technological development in United States. It includes virtually all wholesale power rates so as to improve coordination of power facilities. Simultaneous pooling of power and interconnection of transmission facilities and physical coordination has led to improvement in utilization of existing plants and increased the amount of wholesaling respectively. The possibility of mutual gain through interconnection and wholesaling has been recognized and satisfactory arrangements have been negotiated. In case of failure to achieve adequate wholesaling arrangements, small utilities will have to either continue small scale generation or eventually be absorbed by the large integrated companies. To avail benefits of technological developments, customers of cooperatives and publicly or privately owned utilities have to regulate wholesale rates at federal level. Federal Power Commission stated to regulate wholesale rates in a manner to reduce the price of electricity throughout the nation.

This article discusses the issuance of insurance at substandard rates in the U.S. in 1946. During this year, insurance issued at substandard rates totaled 1.8 billion dollars out of a total volume of new insurance issued of 21.6 dollars. Life insurance at substandard rates in force at the end of the year was approximately 5% of all insurance in force. The persistency rate after issue is somewhat lower on substandard than on standard business. This article also explores the problems that surround a company which issues substandard insurance.

The Tariff act of 1930 is partly an outcome of the post-war agricultural depression. In form it is much like its predecessor. The general level of rates is appreciably higher than that of the law of 1922. The flexible provision which appeared in the Act of 1922 is retained, and on this provision President Hoover relies to reduce imperfections. The protest of the economists is fairly representative of the feeling of a large part of the public, in tariff legislation we are national minded, while our economic interests are becoming more and more international. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the express charges prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the U.S. In one of the articles, the writer described the more important objects of complaint against rates and practices of express companies that have prevailed heretofore; stated the remedial changes, reached in some cases with the cooperation of companies, that are applicable to practices and methods of handling the traffic; discussed more fully arguments urged in support of complaints against the present classification, rates and charges; and stated the general plan proposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission for dealing with these complaints. A schedule prescribed by the commission, effective from October 15, 1913, is a complete revision of the whole structure of express rates. It becomes at once a matter of considerable interest to know upon what basis or principle the commission proceeded in constructing its brand-new structure of charges. The commission considered a number of bases that have been urged, including: the return on the investment; the capitalization of companies; earnings; the operating expenses; first-class freight rates; and passenger rates. In addition, the commission endeavored to reach some common understanding in the matter with the express companies.

The article focuses on the regulation of minimum rates in transportation. A general assumption that recent reductions in rates merely arise from competitive rate slashing and are not the result of more efficient methods of transportation seems unwarranted. In some instances high costs are desirable, provided these costs are properly defined. The U. S. Interstate Commerce Commission's statement that minimum reasonable rates should be governed by the same standards applicable to maximum reasonable rates is misleading, except with reference to the general directives of the U. S. Congress.

Rate making involves political and social policies, as well as economic policy. These policies have been variously defined in the literature and it is of some value to clarify meanings in connection with geographic rate making for electric utilities. Political aspects take into account consumers in their role of electorate. From this standpoint the commission is the servant of consumers and accordingly, it must consider reactions of consumers to rates. The utility company also must consider these political aspects and deal with them as a problem of public relations. The political aspect gives rise to standards for rates such as equity, simplicity, ease of computation and understanding and uniformity. The political aspect also has some economic content, in as much as reactions of consumers reflect their ideas on economics. Economic policy is sometimes treated in the narrow sense of being limited to an analysis of supply and demand factors in the market. This narrow view leaves a broad field for social policy, under which other aspects of the rate problem are treated. For example, it has been said that low rates to a rural area cannot be justified on economic grounds but that they may be justified on social grounds. The present tendency is to take a broad view of what constitutes economic policy and to include in it much of what used to be distinguished as social policy.

In this paper, the author attempts to make a modest contribution to a subject which has suffered neglect by the transportation economists. I think that the subject is important and I regret the neglect. I am not certain that I can advance any facts or theories that are not already known to you, but I think that results will justify the effort if, by re exploring perhaps familiar ground in what I hope is an interesting and challenging way, I can arouse your interest sufficiently to give the matter further consideration. In any event, I take some comfort in a great statement by researcher D. Johnson, "People need not so much to be informed as to be reminded." In what follows I make three assumptions, which I bring to your attention early in my discussion in order to avoid possible confusion or misunderstanding. My first assumption is that our transportation system will continue to be a mixed one, that is, one owned and operated partly by government and partly by private enterprise. My second assumption is that the private sector will continue to be regulated by government substantially along present lines, because of the persistence of monopoly and other market imperfections. Third, I assume that travelers and shippers will continue to have legal freedom in their choice of means of transportation, even though government powerfully influences bases of such choice by provision of facilities and by regulation of rates and services. The pertinence and importance of these assumptions will become evident as my discussion proceeds.

The article explores the need to stop the unparalleled growth of population, and stresses the problems that may occur when the unparalleled growth continues. The author said that the U.S. and other developed countries must take the leadership in setting up world-wide institutions in which maternal and child health care is intimately coupled with family planning and population control advice. He suggested that the 2% unparalleled rate of population must be reversed to prevent insurmountable problems. He also recommended leadership-related ways that would help and prevent nations from having an overpopulation.

This article comments on the book The Retail Price Structure in American Life Insurance, by Joseph M. Belth. The book attempts to develop a comprehensive investigation of pricing practices in the U.S. life insurance industry. The book has been very well received by at least the academic segment of the insurance industry. As academicians with an interest, but no claims as to expertise, in problems of risk and insurance, the book is impressive with a good deal of what the author had to say. On the other hand, there are a couple of other matters that were carelessly or erroneously treated by the author of the book. For instance, throughout the book, he is searching for a general definition of an excessive price. He is apparently never completely satisfied with any of his solutions. Yet the question of what is the socially optimum price has been the subject of investigation at least since the work of French engineer Jules Dupuit. The author is so careful to state that he is not claiming his inverse price-size correlations were necessarily evidence of economies of scale. His reason for this caution is that he feels large firms might either have smaller or larger markups than small firms and this would be problematic in time of analyzing scale economies.

Empirical estimates of marginal tax rates have frequently been made in the U.S., but much less commonly in Great Britain. The need for such information would seem to be just as great and so it may be the complications of British tax arrangements, the form in which the British data are presented or the relatively greater frequency of tax rate changes in that country which have deterred investigators in the past. This paper presents the first results of some investigations into the marginal rate of personal income tax, including surtax. It is hoped to follow up these results with those for other taxes at a later date, but personal income tax is a sufficiently important element in the Great Britain's tax structure for the conclusions to stand on their own. The method is to make estimates of marginal tax rates on the basis of time series and to check these by their predictive power. Subsequently cross-section data are analyzed and the possibilities of using the U.S. methods with the data of Great Britain or of using quarterly data are explored.

This paper has presented estimates of effective protection for 135 manufacturing industries in the United States for 1967. An analysis of the data shows that the neglect of substitution is to bias upwards estimates of effective protection. Measurements of the export bias inherent in the United States tariff structure reveal that there is a strong incentive for United States industries to concentrate on domestic sales. No apparent impact of the tariff structure on imports could be found. However, there is evidence to suggest that the export bias does have a negative impact on exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two major problems, transportation co-ordination and the financial condition of the carriers. The basic elements of the problem of co-ordination were presented in the form of the following five propositions: Exploitation of transport