An important goal of the European Commission is the promotion of the internal energy market (here specifically electricity), which requires sufficient and adequate cross-border interconnector capacity. However, cross-border interconnector capacity is scarce and, more importantly, the progress of...

Small decentralized power generation units (DG) are politically promoted because of their potential to reduce GHG-emissions and the existing dependency on fossil fuels. A long term goal of this promotion should be the creation of a level playing field for DG and conventional power generation....

Coordinating the timing and location of new production facilities is one of the challenges of liberalized power sectors. It is complicated by the presence of transmission bottlenecks, oligopolistic competition, and the unknown prospects of low-carbon technologies. The authors build a model...

This thesis strives to offer new insights in two main areas. First, in the well-researched domain of payment cards chapters 2 and 3 investigate an aspect that has hitherto been scantly examined, namely, the fact that merchant usage fees differ substantially among merchant sectors. Additionally,...

This paper analyzes the process of power utility re-regulation in Eastern Europe and the CIS during the decade of systemic transformation (1990-1999); in particular, it explores reasons why early attempts to introduce competition-oriented reform models have not succeeded. We discuss advantages...

The European Commission is introducing new regulations on submission and publication of data in electricity markets (SPDEM) and on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT). I discuss issues relevant for undertaking an evaluation such regulations. I argue that, for market...

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...

What is a good balance between competition and coordination in network industries? Network unbundling aims to promote competition, but this has to be balanced against the downside of unbundling: firm-internal coordination falls away and must be replaced by external market mechanisms. This is a...

Independent regulatory authorities are a basic prerequisite for a successful liberalization process. However, contrary to what is expected, both graphical analyses and OLS regressions for a small sample of electricity and gas regulators operating in 16 European countries reveal a negative...

The degree of liberalization in OECD electricity markets varies considerably across countries. Commonly explained by diverging economic performances, corruption levels or government ideologies, this paper suggest another potential reason for cross-national differences in market reforms: given...