This paper discusses the potential role of fossil natural gas (and other gases) in the process of the energy transformation in Europe on its way to complete decarbonization. Mainstream conventional wisdom has it that natural gas, perhaps in combination with other gases, should maintain an...

Nuclear power was one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century, and it continues to play an important role in twenty-first century discussions about the future energy mix, climate change, innovation, proliferation, geopolitics, and many other crucial policy topics. This paper...

We analyze potential gains from hypothetical mergers in local public transport using the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis with bias corrections by means of bootstrapping. Our sample consists of 41 public transport companies from Germany's most densely populated region, North...

Subsidies are considered important means to facilitate the provision of public transit, yet the empirical evidence implies that they can have harming effects on costs and possibly also on operators' performance. This paper examines the impacts of deficit-balancing subsidies on the cost...

The deployment of battery-powered electric bus systems within the public transportation sector plays an important role to increase energy efficiency and to abate emissions. Rising attention is given to bus systems using fast charging technology. This concept requires a comprehensive...

Many industries are seeing an increase in concentration, leading to a discussion on the effectiveness of horizontal merger enforcement. The policy debate shows that one of the key arguments put forward when supporting potential mergers is the possibility of realization of merger efficiency...

We study the impact of different regulatory designs on the cost efficiency of operators providing a public service, exploiting data from the French transport industry. The distinctive feature of the study is that it considers regulatory regimes as endogenously determined choices, explained by...

In diesem Beitrag wird die Risikoallokation bei Betreibermodellen für Bundesfernstraßen nach dem F- und A-Modell untersucht. Zunächst werden kurz die Defizite des traditionellen Modells der Herstellung und Bereitstellung von Fernstraßen in Deutschland dargestellt und die Struktur der beiden...

Six years into post-socialist economic reform, a division has appeared between the Central and Eastern European reform countries (CEE) and the CIS-countries. Whereas the former are dedicated to introducing the institutions of a capitalist market economy, the European CIS-countries (Russia,...

A shift from zonal pricing to smaller zones and nodal pricing improves efficiency and security of system operation. Resulting price changes do however also shift profits and surplus between and across generation and load. As individual actorscan lose, they might oppose any reform. We explore how...