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Empirical support for the purported benefits of retail electric deregulation is mixed at best. Prior studies that identify states as simply "retail deregulated" overlook complex policy environments in which deregulation is implemented by regulators with a high degree of discretion. Prior studies also rely on Energy Information Administration data that do not account for core regulatory interventions that can take place during the process of implementing deregulation. Using robust time series household final bill survey data from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, this article provides a quasi-experimental analysis of the price impacts of retail electric restructuring in Ohio. The results suggest that residential electricity prices have increased following retail restructuring in all service territories in Ohio, with significant favourable welfare effects observed only in the Cincinnati area, where key policy implementation stages were not circumvented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a theoretical framework to advance the understanding of collaborative organization through integrating extant theories of political economy. Eight propositions are advanced from theories of rent seeking, commodification, administrative capture, cartelization, transparency, risk, institutional logic, and transaction cost. These propositions are applied to a recent multisectoral collaborative, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Because of the innate diversity that exists among institutions, collaborative organization constitutes a hybrid organizational form through which regulatory penumbras, or gray areas, emerge. Political economic conditions can arise in these penumbral areas, as they offer organizations the opportunity to operate within diminished regulatory environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]