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Utility Ratemaking
Utility ratemaking is the formal regulatory process in the United States by which public utilities set the prices (more commonly known as "rates") they will charge consumers. Ratemaking, typically carried out through "rate cases" before a public utilities commission, serves as one of the primary instruments of government regulation of public utilities. Overview Historically, many different classes of business have been classified as public utilities, and thus have been legally mandated to go through the ratemaking process in order to determine the allowable service charges for their industry. Although the classification of public utilities has changed over time, typically such businesses must constitute a ''de facto'' monopoly (or "natural monopoly") for the services they provide within a particular jurisdiction. Prominent public utilities that must utilize ratemaking to set rates include railroads, natural gas distribution, telecommunications, and electricity generation and dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Utility
A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies. Public utilities are meant to supply goods and services that are considered essential; water, gas, electricity, telephone, waste disposal, and other communication systems represent much of the public utility market. The transmission lines used in the transportation of electricity, or natural gas pipelines, have natural monopoly characteristics. A monopoly can occur when it finds the best way to minimize its costs through economies of scale to the point where other companies cannot compete with it. For example, if many companies are already offering electricity, the additional installation of a power plant will only disadvantage the consumer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Stock
In economics, capital goods or capital are "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services. A typical example is the machinery used in a factory. At the macroeconomic level, "the nation's capital stock includes buildings, equipment, software, and inventories during a given year." The means of production is as a "... series of heterogeneous commodities, each having specific technical characteristics ..." "capital goods", are one of the three types of intermediate goods used in the production process, the other two being land and labour. The three are also known collectively as "primary factors of production". This classification originated during the classical economics period and has remained the dominant method for classification. Capital can be increased by the use of a production process (see production function and factors of production). Outputs of the production process are normally classifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Board Of Directors
A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations (including the jurisdiction's corporate law) and the organization's own constitution and by-laws. These authorities may specify the number of members of the board, how they are to be chosen, and how often they are to meet. In an organization with voting members, the board is accountable to, and may be subordinate to, the organization's full membership, which usually elect the members of the board. In a stock corporation, non-executive directors are elected by the shareholders, and the board has ultimate responsibility for the management of the corporation. In nations with codetermination (such as Germany and Sweden), the workers of a corporation elect a set fraction of the board's members. The board of directors appoints the ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Investment
Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditures and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed cash flow stream. In finance, the purpose of investing is to generate a Return (finance), return on the invested asset. The return may consist of a capital gain (profit) or loss, realised if the investment is sold, unrealised capital appreciation (or depreciation) if yet unsold. It may also consist of periodic income such as dividends, interest, or rental income. The return may also inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Assets
A financial asset is a non-physical asset whose value is derived from a contractual claim, such as bank deposits, bonds, and participations in companies' share capital. Financial assets are usually more liquid than tangible assets, such as commodities or real estate. The opposite of financial assets is non-financial assets, which include both tangible property (sometimes also called real assets) such as land, real estate or commodities, and intangible assets such as intellectual property, including copyrights, patents, trademarks and data. Types According to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), a financial asset can be: * Cash or cash equivalent, * Equity instruments of another entity, * Contractual right to receive cash or another financial asset from another entity or to exchange financial assets or financial liabilities with another entity under conditions that are potentially favorable to the entity, * A contract that will or may be settled in the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Employee Stock Option
Employee stock options (ESO or ESOPs) is a label that refers to compensation contracts between an employer and an employee that carries some characteristics of Options (finance), financial options. Employee stock options are commonly viewed as an internal agreement providing the possibility to participate in the share capital of a company, granted by the company to an employee as part of the employee's remuneration, remuneration package. Regulators and economists have since specified that ESOs are compensation contracts. These nonstandard contracts exist between employee and employer, whereby the employer has the liability of delivering a certain number of shares of the employer stock, when and if the employee stock options are exercised by the employee. The contract length varies, and often carries terms that may change depending on the employer and the current employment status of the employee. In the United States, the terms are detailed within an employer's "Stock Option A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remuneration
Remuneration is the pay or other financial compensation provided in exchange for an employee's ''services performed'' (not to be confused with giving (away), or donating, or the act of providing to). Remuneration is one component of reward management. In the UK, it can also refer to the automatic division of profits attributable to members in a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). Types Remuneration can include: *Commission (remuneration), Commission *Employee benefits *Employee stock ownership *Executive compensation **Deferred compensation *Salary **Performance-linked incentives *Wage *Inventor (patent)#Compensation of inventors, Mandatory compensation payable by an employer to an employee for the benefit obtained from a patent for an invention made by an employee United States For wage withholding purposes under U.S. income tax law, the term "wage" means remuneration (with certain exceptions) for services performed by an employee for an employer.''See generally'' subsection (a) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating Expenses
An operating expense (opex) is an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system. Its counterpart, a ''capital expenditure'' (capex), is the cost of developing or providing non-consumable parts for the product or system. For example, the purchase of a photocopier involves capex, and the annual paper, toner, power and maintenance costs represents opex. For larger systems like businesses, opex may also include the cost of workers and facility expenses such as rent and utilities. Overview In business, an operating expense is a day-to-day expense such as sales and administration, or research & development, as opposed to production. In short, this is the money the business spends in order to turn inventory into throughput. On an income statement, "operating expenses" is the sum of a business's operating expenses for a period of time, such as a month or year. In throughput accounting, the cost accounting aspect of the theory of constraints (TOC), operating expense is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utility Companies
A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies. Public utilities are meant to supply goods and services that are considered essential; water, gas, electricity, telephone, waste disposal, and other communication systems represent much of the public utility market. The transmission lines used in the transportation of electricity, or natural gas pipelines, have natural monopoly characteristics. A monopoly can occur when it finds the best way to minimize its costs through economies of scale to the point where other companies cannot compete with it. For example, if many companies are already offering electricity, the additional installation of a power plant will only disadvantage the consumer as prices ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive Compensation
Executive compensation is composed of both the Salary, financial compensation (executive pay) and other non-financial benefits received by an Senior management, executive from their employing firm in return for their service. It is typically a mixture of fixed salary, variable performance-based bonuses (cash, shares, or call options on the company capital stock, stock) and Employee benefits, benefits and other perquisites all ideally configured to take into account government regulations, tax law, the desires of the organization and the executive. The three decades from the 1980s saw a dramatic rise in executive pay relative to that of an average worker's wage in the United States, and to a lesser extent in a number of other countries. Observers differ as to whether this rise is a natural and beneficial result of competition for scarce business talent that can add greatly to stockholder value in large companies, or a socially harmful phenomenon brought about by social and political ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redistribution Of Wealth
Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law. The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals. Understanding of the phrase varies, depending on personal perspectives, political ideologies and the selective use of statistics. It is frequently used in politics, to refer to perceived redistribution from those who have more to those who have less. Rarely, the term is used to describe laws or policies that cause redistribution in the opposite direction, from the poor to the rich. The phrase is sometimes related to the term ''class warfare'', where the redistribution is alleged to counteract harm caused by high-income earners and the wealthy through means such as unfairness and discrimination. R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Conservation
Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively (using less and better sources of energy for continuous service) or changing one's behavior to use less and better source of service (for example, by driving vehicles which consume renewable energy or energy with more efficiency). Energy conservation can be achieved through efficient energy use, which has some advantages, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a smaller carbon footprint, as well as cost, water, and energy savings. Green engineering practices improve the life cycle of the components of machines which convert energy from one form into another. Energy can be conserved by reducing waste and losses, improving efficiency through technological upgrades, improving operations and maintenance, changing users' behaviors through user profiling or user activities, monitoring appliances, shifting load to o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
