The EU faces challenges in reforming the Gas and Electricity Directives to implement the single market in electricity and gas. The Paper argues that there is unfinished business in the areas of regulation, restructuring, encouraging proper risk management through contracting, and designing...

We generalize von der Fehr and Harbord's (1993) multi-unit auction model for the case of a deterministic demand allowing for any technology mix and elastic demand in order to account for demand side bidding. We obtain a general characterization of the equilibrium and show that the Cournot model...

Should arbitrators adjudicate on the basis of their own investigations, or invite the interested parties to make their cases and decide on the basis of the information so gathered? I call the former the inquisitorial procedure in arbitration and the latter the adversarial procedure. I conduct a...

The paper discusses economic theories of harm for anti-competitive margin squeeze by unregulated and regulated vertically integrated firms. We review both predation and foreclosure theories, as well as the mere exploitation of upstream market power. We show that foreclosure provides an...

We develop a model that examines the capital structure and investment decisions of regulated firms in a setting that incorporates two key institutional features of the public utilities sector in many countries: firms are partially owned by the state and regulators are not necessarily...

This paper analyzes optimal procurement mechanisms in a setting where the procurement agency has incomplete information concerning the firms' cost functions and cares about quality as well as price. Low type firms are cheaper than high type firms in providing low quality but more expensive when...

We formulate and estimate a structural model for travel demand, in which users have heterogeneous preferences and make their transport decisions considering the network congestion. A key component in the model is that users have incomplete information about the preferences of other users in the...

This paper investigates various options for the organization of the railway industry when network operators require the access to multiple national networks to provide international (freight or passenger) transport services. The EU rail system provides a framework for our analysis....

When data on actual choices are not available, researchers studying preferences sometimes pose choice scenarios and ask respondents to state the actions they would choose if they were to face these scenarios. The data on stated choices are then used to estimate random utility models, as if they...

Inspired by the creation of the new Competition Authority in Portugal, we consider the interplay between regulatory agencies with overlapping competencies; for example, a competition authority and a sectoral regulator. We analyse how authorities’ incentives are affected if they can decide...