The impact of regulation on technical change

This paper examines the impact of regulation on a firm's choice of innovations and on the rate of technical change. Using a 1977-1987 panel of 20 U.S. interstate natural gas pipeline companies, I find that regulation led firms to adopt a technology that augmented (i) noncapital more than capital and (ii) noncapital more than the technology the standard (unregulated) firm would have adopted. I also find that, while technical regress occurred over the sample period, regulation led to a small decline in the rate of technical change and a small increase in production cost on average.