GOING VALUE AND RATE VALUATION

Authors

Ben W. Lewis, Oberlin College

Abstract

From the mere circumstance "that a controversy has been long kept on foot, and remains still undecided, we may presume that there is some ambiguity in the expression, and that the disputants affix different ideas to the terms employed ...... " Although David Hume was not here concerning himself with twentieth century utility regulation, his observation finds appropriate employment as a preface to a present day study of the problem of going value. The problem is an open one-temptingly open. Years of contention, an impressive array of publications by economists, attorneys, and engineers, and hundreds of opinions of courts and commissions have served only to invite more contention, more publications, and more opinions. And one suspects that the situation is a product not so much of the inherent complexity of going value itself as of the failure of those concerned to define carefully their terms and to proceed logically from a common point of departure. Terms moulded by the exigencies of argument and reasoning marshalled to sustain preconceived conclusions do not conduce to the happy silencing of controversy. The problem of going value is one in a hierarchy of problems ; it will not be solved without painstaking analysis of the going value concept in the light of the requirements of the relationship between the public service industry and the public, and of the demands made upon public utility valuation as a phase of the process of rate control which must subserve those ends.

Recommended Citation

Ben W. Lewis, GOING VALUE AND RATE VALUATION, 26 Mich. L. Rev. 713 (1928).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol26/iss7/2