The oil industry is of great economic significance to many countries, and privatisations of National Oil Companies (NOCs) have often been controversial, as have been the benefits from privatisation more generally. We conduct a social cost-benefit analysis of the partial privatisation of...

The same fuels are taxed at widely different rates in different countries while different fuels are taxed at widely different rates within and across countries. Coal, oil and gas are all used to generate electricity, but are subject to very different tax or subsidy regimes. This paper considers...

This study explores and quantifies the benefits of connecting more distributed generation (with and without the use of smart connections) across different parties (Distribution Network Operators, wider society and generators). Different connection scenarios are proposed (with partial and full...

We explore the different competitive mechanisms applied by electric utilities from the USA in promoting cost-effective Distribution Generation (DG) resources and the challenges that they face due to the increase in DG connections. Case studies from California, Oregon, Colorado and New York are...

Demsetz (1968) advocated competitive bidding as a replacement for natural monopoly regulation. Williamson (1976) and Goldberg (1976) argued that these problems of natural monopoly regulation are inherent in long-term investment under uncertainty, and that both long- and short-term franchising...

Like in the US, the EU “internal electricity market” remains unfinished and its construction can stall, fracturing into “national blocks” separated by permanent “border effects”. This is exactly what this paper seeks to avoid in the expected life of the current European Commission...

The aim of this study is to perform a cost benefit analysis of the different options for connecting distributed generation (DG) customers in a specific constrained area (the March Grid), under the context of the Flexible Plug and Play trial. The study shows the importance of the development of...

This paper examines the history of the various actual and proposed interconnectors between New South Wales and Victoria into South Australia. It covers the period from the earliest proposal for a regulated interconnector to the recent Victoria Supreme Court review and the latest ministerial...

This study empirically investigates the impact of privatisation on firm performance in the global oil and gas industry, where questions of resource control have regained widespread attention. Using a dataset of 60 public share offerings by 28 National Oil Companies it is shown that privatisation...

This paper investigates whether there are systematic performance and efficiency differentials between National Oil Companies (NOCs) and privately-owned oil companies. The dataset is based on a survey published by Energy Intelligence and covers 1,001 firm observation years in the period 1987 to...