In the course of the liberalization of European energy markets, the German government opted - diverging from all other European countries - for Negotiated Third-Party Access. In this article we analyze if, theoretically, this institutional regime can be superior to regulation. We review...

After the deregulation of the German electricity markets in 1998, the German government opted for a regulatory regime called negotiated third party access, which would be subject to ex-post control by the federal cartel office. Network access charges for new competitors are based on contractual...