Competition authorities and regulatory bodies have increasingly made use of econometric and statistical methods in their analysis. Due to limitations of time and data, so-called screening methods have become more and more important in order to decide whether an in-depth inquiry is warranted....

This paper analyses the benefits of further market integration of European wholesale electricity markets. Major gains from trade are still left unrealized due to (1) uncompleted market coupling of national wholesale markets, (2) isolated national regulation of capacity and reserve mechanisms...

In order to avoid over-regulation, some countries have experimented with what might be called threat-based regulation. The idea is - similarly to the contestable market model - that actual regulation may not be necessary as long as the threat of regulation is credible. In that case, so the idea,...