Empirical work shows that competition is important for promoting economic growth. However, in Japan the promotion of competition has long been compromised by ministerial guidance and exemptions from the competition law. Thus, the level and growth of productivity have been low in many...

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken competition and has left a legacy of government...

This article examines the energy market restructuring in EU after the gradual liberalisation process of previous years and defines the application of European competition law to this framework of restructuring. We firstly present the different aspects of this restructuring and second we...

In this article we chart the development of competition and deregulation of the British retail energy markets, explaining the evolution of competitive constraints when consumers are introduced to supplier choice for the first time. In the context of rising real energy prices for consumers, and...

This document presents the new 2013 set of the OECD Regulatory Impact (REGIMPACT) indicator. It measures the impact of regulatory barriers to competition in non-manufacturing sectors on all industries, through intermediate inputs. The paper describes how the indicator is calculated and discusses...

Motivated by recent policy events experienced by the European natural gas industry, this paper develops a simple model for analyzing the interaction between gas release and capacity investment programs as tools to improve the performance of imperfectly competitive markets. We consider a regional...

Motivated by recent policy events experienced by the European natural gas industry, this paper develops a simple model for analyzing the interaction between gas release and capacity investment programs as tools to improve the performance of imperfectly competitive markets. We consider a regional...

Transmission networks are crucial for gas wholesale markets. In the past, the individual networks of transmission system operators (TSOs) determined market areas in the European Union, but driven by the prospect of higher liquidity in the wholesale market, welfare gains for society as well as...

This working paper examines the recent changes in the Russian gas sector. The development of the sector is described and the important companies – such as Gazprom, Itera, Novatek, Northgas and the main gas producing oil companies (Surgutneftegas, TNK, Yukos, Lukoil) – are profiled....

This paper examines retail competition in a liberalized gas market. Vertically integrated firms run both wholesale activities (buying gas from the producers under take-or-pay obligations) and retail activities (selling gas to final customers). The market is decentralized and the firms decide...