The changes under way in natural gas are precursors for deregulation and market-driven systems in other industries, such as electricity, oil, airports, airlines, banks, trucking, shipping, railroad, commodity exchanges, and telecommunications.

Since 1984, relaxed federal guidelines have allowed the natural gas industry to become far more flexible and competitive. Once gas pipelines were given the option of open access, the barriers to markets and competition dissolved. The success of open access points to the emergence and evolution of a fluid and informationally rich network of regional markets that form today's single national market for natural gas. A broad range of specialists and academics in economics, regulatory economics and economic modeling, industrial organization, and energy and natural resources will find the implications of this work important reading.