Private infrastructure investment is profitable only if followed by a sufficiently high price, but pricing may be subject to regulation. We study markets where regulation is determined by elected policymakers. If price regulation is subject to manipulation then private investors may delay investment fearing an electoral pressure on future prices, leading to a holdup inefficiency. This could possibly be alleviated by regulatory independence, where policymakers can no longer influence the prices. However, to encourage investment the policymakers may install regulation that serves the interests of the infrastructure owners (“regulatory capture”) and lead to inefficient pricing. Regulatory independence can then be detrimental as it may entrench this capture. Whether inefficiencies can be moderated by creating regulatory independence therefore depends on the policymakers’ objectives. We provide experimental evidence for such capture entrenchment and detrimental effects of regulatory independence that therefore arise. Even without independence, the uninformed voters do not provide sufficient pressure to remove these effects. On the other hand, we observe that regulatory independence does reduce holdup inefficiency when policymakers align with the public interest.

私人基础设施投资只有在价格足够高的情况下才能盈利，但定价可能受到监管。我们研究监管由民选政策制定者决定的市场。如果价格监管受到操纵，那么私人投资者可能会因担心未来价格受到选举压力而推迟投资，从而导致套牢效率低下。监管独立可能会缓解这种情况，因为政策制定者无法再影响价格。然而，为了鼓励投资，政策制定者可能会制定有利于基础设施所有者利益的监管（“监管捕获”），并导致定价效率低下。监管独立性可能是有害的，因为它可能会巩固这种捕获。因此，能否通过建立监管独立性来缓解低效率取决于政策制定者的目标。我们为这种捕获巩固以及由此产生的监管独立性的有害影响提供了实验证据。即使没有独立，不知情的选民也没有提供足够的压力来消除这些影响。另一方面，我们观察到，当政策制定者与公共利益保持一致时，监管独立性确实会降低敲诈勒索的低效率。