In 2004, in the beginning of the first president Lula mandate, a complete regulatory reform of electricity was launched. In 2008, four years after, Brazilian Congress started an investigation of the causes of Brazilian relatively high electricity tariffs. The results of the investigation pointed...

Due to the 3rd Energy Package of 2009 the regulation of European electricity transmission did change considerably. Before, cross-border electricity issues have been regulated by voluntary contractual agreements between Transmission System Operators. Now, the new-founded Agency for the...

The aim of this paper is to give deeper insights into the impact of regulatory reforms and privatization on R&D spending of electricity utilities. Building on a panel data set including the biggest European utilities from eight EU-countries over a period from 1985 until 2010, we find a strong...

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of vertical unbundling on German electric utilities. Our research mainly relies on in-depth interviews with sector-experts from the German utilities. We will discuss both short-term changes and the long-term impact on competition in the...

This paper addresses the issue of investment in electricity generation in the context of a liberalised market. We use the main results derived from a theoretical model where firms invest strategically to simulate the Spanish electricity system with real-world data. Our results indicate that,...

This paper develops a framework for analyzing the incentives of national transmission system operators (TSOs) to supply cross-border interconnection capacity in an international electricity market. Our results show that equilibrium transmission capacity is downward distorted, even in situations...

The electricity sector is a typical network industry consisting of four closely linked vertical stages. Following liberalisation in Europe in the 1990s, the sector witnessed a surge of mergers, which were subject to review by the European Commission. At the same time, comprehensive economic...

The Opinion of Advocate General (‘AG’) Rantos in Servizio Elettrico Nazionale goes to the core of Article 102 TFEU. What is an abuse? What type of conduct is abusive? When does abusive conduct take place? What are the goals pursued by the prohibition of abuse of dominance, and who should be...

Incumbent vertical market power in deregulating markets can be anticompetitive, as seen in the current process of retail electricity restructuring. This paper uses the AT&T antitrust case’s Bell Doctrine precedent of “quarantine the monopoly” as a case study in incumbent vertical market...

Hybrid governance structures between markets and hierarchies in many industries, e.g., in energy and telecommunications, challenge antitrust and regulation policy. The paper focusses on the theoretical and methodological basis provided by the New Institutional Economics (NIE) for analyzing the...