"Values, Regulation, and Technology in the American ElectricUtility Industry, 1973 to 1988."

赫什博士正在分析价值观和动机的变化， 近几年来，美国的经济结构调整 电力工业。 以一种历史的和人文的 他特别关注发展中国家的发展， 监管界的个人态度-态度 由于各种各样的影响而被迫改变。 技术变革是这些影响之一，尽管它 一直被人们所知甚少。作为工业中使用的技术， 在20世纪60年代和70年代开始停滞，结束了80年的趋势 持续改进和单位成本下降，监管机构 开始质疑公用事业行业地位的合理性 “自然垄断”。“与此同时，监管机构的价值观和 新的经济理论和文章影响了人们的看法， 在1978年的新立法中， 供非公用事业发电机使用。 监管机构的质疑 受管制的自然电力公司垄断是否仍然是 “为了公众利益”最近被翻译成了部分 放松对行业的管制。 此外，这项工作将解决 监管机构的新价值观如何转化为 新的激励技术创新，以及如何这些 激励措施有助于重组运动， 一直持续到90年代及以后。 赫什博士的目标是进行一项研究， 知识和技术来源的重组公用事业 行业 这项工作将超越政治和经济 讨论并为历史学家提供原创的观点， 技术、行业管理者和公共政策制定者。 它将 也满足管理人员和政策分析人员的迫切需要， 更好地了解参与者的动机， 重要的工业正在经历痛苦的变化。

Dr. Hirsh is analyzing the changes in values and motivations that contributed in recent years to the restructuring of the American electric utility industry. Taking an historical and humanistic perspective, he is paying particular attention to evolving attitudes of individuals in the regulatory community--attitudes that have been forced to change due to a variety of influences. Technological change has been one of these influences, though it has been poorly understood. As technology used in the industry began stagnating in the 1960s and 1970s, ending an 80 year trend of continuous improvement and declining unit costs, regulators started questioning the rationale for the utility industry's status as a "natural monopoly." At the same time, regulators' values and perceptions were influenced by novel economic theories and passage in 1978 of new legislation that stimulated technological innovation for use by non-utility generators. The questioning by regulators of whether regulated natural electric utility monopolies were still "in the public interest" has recently been translated into partial deregulation of the industry. Additionally, this work will address the issue of how regulators' new values have been converted into novel incentives for technological innovation and how these incentives contribute to a restructuring movement that will continue into the 1990s and beyond. Dr. Hirsh's aim is to produce a study detailing the social, intellectual, and technical origins of a restructured utility industry. The work will transcend political and economic discussions and provide original perspectives to historians of technology, industry managers and public policy makers. It will also serve an immediate need of managers and policy analysts by offering a better understanding of participants' motivations as a vital industry undergoes wrenching changes.