The European Union's (EU) energy sector is changing due to major policy reforms. In this article, we examine the impact of major legislative changes which were designed to induce competition in the energy sector: the three liberalization packages. Competition was expected to benefit the industry...

The shift to competition in utility generation is likely to generate "stranded investments," which are wealth transfers between investors and utility ratepayers. Stranded investments can take either of two forms: (1) "stranded costs" are a transfer from investors to ratepayers that occur when...

Economic theory states that “free market” competition naturally achieves lower prices—thereby increasing efficiency and benefiting society. This is the first paper in the literature to use means testing to statistically analyze electricity prices, from 1970-2011, for states that...

The 1990s witnessed significant regulatory changes in several Spanish network industries, such as electricity, telecommunications, natural gas and oil. This article provides an assessment of these developments, aiming to ascertain what goals policy-makers sought to achieve with the deregulation...