Six decades of efforts by federal agencies to regulate the natural gas industry in the U. S. have failed, says the author of this important book. Paul MacAvoy shows that no one has gained from public control of the natural gas industry, and he argues that all participants would gain from complete deregulation. For regulated and about-to-be-regulated industries, the costly history of gas regulation is a tale to heed well.

Paul W. MacAvoy is Williams Brothers Professor of Management Studies and former dean of the School of Management, Yale University.