This paper is a technical report commissioned by Energy Consumers Australia, a statutory advocacy institution, as to the state of the electricity market in Australia. Using standard tools of economics, it finds that the combination of market power, vertical integration and a poor regulatory...

We develop a theory of “risky utilities”, i.e. private firms that manage an infrastructure for public service, and that may be tempted to engage in excessively risky activities, such as reducing maintenance expenditures (at the risk of provoking a break-down of the system) or in speculation...

Wholesale electricity prices can rapidly change in real-time, yet households usually face fixed-price electricity tariffs. Therefore, households that predominantly use energy when wholesale prices are low implicitly cross-subsidize households whose energy use is more weighted to high-price...