Abstract: In November 2011 Sweden abolished the uniform national electricity price and introduced separate price zones. This was the result of an antitrust settlement between the Commission and the Swedish network operator, which was accused of discriminating between domestic and export...

The liberalization of the electricity sector increases the need for realistic and robust models of the oligopolistic interaction of electricity firms. This paper compares the two most popular models: Cournot and the Supply Function Equilibrium (SFE), and tests which model describes the observed...

This paper studies the welfare implications of using market mechanisms to allocate transmission capacity in recently liberalized electricity markets. It questions whether access to this essential facility should be traded on a market, or whether the incumbent should retain exclusive usage...

Abstract: We demonstrate how suppliers can take strategic speculative positions in derivatives markets to soften competition in the spot market. In our game, suppliers first choose a portfolio of call options and then compete with supply functions. In equilibrium firms sell forward contracts and...

We demonstrate how an incumbent producer of commodities can use cash-settled derivatives contracts to deter entry and extract rents from a potential competitor. By selling more derivatives than total demand, the producer commits to low prices and forces the entrant to price low upon entry. By...

This paper studies the welfare implications of using market mechanisms to allocate transmission capacity in recently liberalized electricity markets. It questions whether access to this essential facility should be traded on a market, or whether the incumbent should retain exclusive usage...

This paper reports the results of an experiment evaluating three regulatory schemes for network infrastructure, in terms of their ability to generate efficient levels of capacity investment. We compare the performance of (1) price cap regulation, (2) a regulatory holiday for new capacity, and...

In this paper we show that free entry decisions may be socially inefficient, even in a perfectly competitive homogeneous goods market with non-lumpy investments. In our model, inefficient entry decisions are the result of risk-aversion of incumbent producers and consumers, combined with...