Japan's natural gas industry is reliant on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) that normally requires regasification prior to consumption. Unbundling of the industry has not been enforced and while some local distribution utilities purchase gas via pipelines that is regasified by the seller,...

This paper reassesses the links between transport fuels consumption, (gasoline and diesel) income, and prices for a sample of non-OECD countries using kernel smoothing methods. The focus of the article questions functional form assumptions underlying most previous research, the majority assuming...

We show that the oil market has become closer to \one great pool," in the sense that price differentials between crude oils of different qualities have generally become smaller over time. We document, in particular, that many of these quality-related differentials experienced a major structural...

We examine the role that maximum demand charges (MDCs) can play in avoiding the death spiral that some utilities may otherwise face as the distributed generation (DG) of electricity proliferates. We find that MDCs generally secure gains for consumers that do not undertake DG, and often secure...

If financial markets manage risk to personal consumption efficiently, it should be the case that energy bills that vary directly with aggregate personal consumption can be made both lower and less volatile at cost, since doing so is effectively making payments when aggregate consumption is high,...

We investigate how the effects of market structure changes and mergers in restructured electricity markets depend on the level of forward contracting. Following Bushnell, Mansur, and Saravia (2008), we develop a Cournot model of Alberta's wholesale electricity market that incorporates firms'...

We analyze the effects of electricity market mergers in an environment where firms endogenously choose their level of forward contracts prior to competing in the wholesale market. We apply our model to Alberta's wholesale electricity market. Firms have an incentive to reduce their forward...

Subsidies have become a crucial topic nowadays for many developing countries due to the fluctuations in international fuel prices. Many developing nations (both importers and exporters of fossil fuels) are trying to phase out subsidies due to the burden it exerts on the fiscal budget. Many...

We analyze the regulatory procurement of electricity infrastructure that can take the form of either a traditional core investment or non-traditional distributed energy resources (DERs). We identify conditions under which a regulated utility will engage in self-sabotage (i.e., intentionally...

We measure the degree of market power execution and inefficiencies in Alberta's restructured electricity market. Using hourly wholesale market data from 2008 to 2014, we find that firms exercise substantial market power in the highest demand hours with limited excess production capacity. The...