Rob Bradley Gives a Brief History of US Electricity Regulation, with Lessons for the Recent Texas Freeze
Rob Bradley is an expert in the history of US energy markets. He explains the role of Sam Insull (co-founder of General Electric) in showing what a free market in electricity would look like, and then criticizes Texas’ ERCOT as a central planning agency.
Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:
- The YouTube version of this interview
- Rob Bradley’s website, Master Resource
- Rob’s article on the recent Texas freeze and Paul Krugman
- Rob Bradley’s books Edison to Enron and Capitalism at Work
- Harold Demsetz’s 1968 Journal of Law and Economics article, “Why Regulate Utilities?”
- Robert Bryce’s book Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron
- Forrest McDonald’s book Insull: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Utility Tycoon
- Bob’s article on the Texas freeze
- Bob Murphy Show episode 77, where Rob Bradley explains his education under Rothbard and his contributions to energy economics in the Austrian tradition
For more information, see BobMurphyShow.com. The Bob Murphy Show is also available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and via RSS.
