Courses

The idea of the public utility has gained renewed attention over the last several years. This regulatory model, which first rose to prominence in the 19th century before waning in influence towards the end of the 20th century, has popped up in recent conversations about how to address a range of modern problems, from the regulation of internet platforms to the concentration of market power in financial and technology firms to climate change and the decarbonization of the electricity grid. This course is intended to introduce students to the theories behind the public utility—both historically and in its new iterations. Students will learn about public utility regulation as the precursor to much of modern administrative law. We will review early debates over the form and function of public utility regulation from prominent scholars like Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, David Lilienthal, and Robert Hale, and their conception of public utility regulation as not just a tool of economic regulation but also a democracy-enforcing mechanism. We will then review important critiques of the public utility that emerged from the Chicago School in the late 20th century, many of which were fueled by stark examples of the failures of public utility regulation in the public sphere. The last part of the course will discuss the nascent revival of interest in the public utility model. Students will interrogate these new versions of public utility regulation and assess how well they respond to both the model’s historical shortcomings and the new problems it might address.