Politics of public utility regulation in the United States, 1980

Description

Interviews were conducted in 1979-80 with managers associated with the public utility regulation process. The respondents represent twelve states, and include public utility commissioners, public utility commission staff members, utility company executives, assistant attorneys general, and representatives of citizens' groups (both governmental and non- governmental public advocates). The 144 variables in the dataset include attitudinal measures regarding issues in the public utility regulation process, as well as perceptions of organizational accountability, decision-making processes, allocation of resources, and diffusion of innovations within the various organizations associated with the regulatory process. Background information on each respondent was also collected, but many of these variables have been recoded to missing data in order to protect the anonymity of the respondents. These variables are described in the documentation available from ICPSR, and researchers interested in these particular variables may request ICPSR to conduct specific data analyses using those variables. Such requests will be processed according to the standard policies of ICPSR.