Assuming no contracts at all would be a natural extreme case. In the simplified example
above, this would imply a wide range for the total benefits and allocation of costs. For
example, in Figure 5, for the generators in the exporting region the total benefits would
be I+D+H, and any cost allocation up to that amount would be better than no expansion.
The private benefits of the generators are higher than the social benefits of the exporting
region. This could complicate the investment decision, and thus requires the application
of the gold standard for efficiency; but the same fact would simplify cost allocation to the
beneficiaries because the private benefits of generators in exporting regions and loads in
importing regions are larger than the net benefits of the region which for efficient
investments are larger than the costs.