While liberalization in energy markets has been a widely successful process all over the world, incumbents often still hold a dominant position. Thus, electricity wholesale markets are subject to market surveillance. Nevertheless, consolidated findings on abusive practices of market power and...

Although the future socio-economic benefits of a new fibre-based ('next generation access', NGA) telecommunications infrastructure seem to be uncontroversial, a universal NGA coverage appears to be a rather unrealistic objective without government intervention. We contend, however, that the...

In German electricity submarkets for residential customers standard contracts offered by former monopolists are the more costly option for customers who have not switched to an alternative contract yet. As most German households are served with this contract type we follow the Limit Pricing...

Die Arbeit untersucht den von der ?Arbeitgruppe Netznutzung Strom der Kartellbehörden des Bundes und der Länder? vorgeschlagenen Subtraktionstest, mit dessen Hilfe missbräuchlich überhöhte Netznutzungsentgelte für die Durchleitung von Strom identifiziert werden sollen. Dabei kommen wir zu...

This paper provides an overview of telecommunications regulation in the U.S. and in Europe. For each region the history of telecommunications regulations as well as the current regulatory regime is portrayed. The focus of this overview is on the question of how unbundling regulations in the...

The majority of industrial organizations literature on network externalities looks at firm behavior under given market characteristics. The present paper instead asks the question whether the presence of network externalities can change market characteristics, specifically, whether an initially...

The paper deals with the subtraction rule, which has been proposed by the ?working group security of supply in service of the cartel offices of the federal republic and the states? as an instrument to identify improperly inflated network access charges in the electricity industry. We analyze...

This paper gives a survey of the current state of competition in the German Broadband access market. Existing regulations and their impact on the deployment of high-speed Internet access are evaluated. It is argued that facilities-based competition is preferable to open-network regulations. The...

States and their representatives, national governments, play a key role in national telecommunication markets. As lawmakers, they determine the playing field of the agents in the markets and the decision powers of national regulators. Simultaneously, they are involved in appointing presidential...

The interplay of infrastructure supply and demand is of central interest in line with Web 2.0. As the role of customers turns from a service users' role to an information providers' role, the traffic on existing lines increases and, simultaneously, customers' demand for high-quality...