Abstract:
When the 1979 revolt in Iran disrupted that country's oil exports, the US government responded to the reduced availability of fuel by controlling both price and allocation. Some analysts have argued that those actions exacerbated the oil crisis by causing long gas lines and shortages, and that in the future the government should handle similar disruptions by letting the market set the price for fuel. The resulting jump in prices would increase revenues from the windfall profits tax on oil, which the government could then plow back to consumers in some sort of payment to ease the worst effects of higher prices. However, implementing this seemingly straightforward scheme would be daunting for two reasons: There is no single list of "everyone" in the US; and to assist people with high heating and transportation costs, the payments would have to be made very quickly and with little lead time. After presenting this problem, the case describes federal and state agencies that maintain lists of considerable numbers of Americans and regularly disburse payments to them. It is the student's task to come up with implementation proposals that would make best use of this existing capacity.
Learning Objective:
This case is designed to introduce students to issues in implementation, as a practical exercise in thinking through the various stages and associated problems in implementing a policy.
