Starting in 1998, the electricity market in England and Wales will be opened up to full competition, and all consumers will be allowed to choose their electricity supplier. This promises to result in lower prices, but there will be additional transactions costs exceeding £100 million a year for...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how energy policy should respond to the changes in the organisation of energy sector associated with privatisation. The paper begins with a brief review of how energy policy was perceived before the 1973 oil shock, and the lessons learned from...