This paper discusses the evidence on electricity reform and relates it to the current situation of the South East Europe (SEE) electricity market. We begin by discussing the main elements of the European Union (EU) electricity reform model. Then we go on to discuss emerging good practice in the...

Joskow, P. and others propose that, with the opening of retail electricity markets, distribution utilities should be required to enable residential customers to buy at (averaged) wholesale spot market prices. They argue that retail electricity competitors should concentrate on value-added...

From 1992 to 2002, major expansions of the Argentine electricity transmission sector depended on users proposing, voting and paying for such expansions, which were then put out to competitive tender. Commentators hold this novel policy to have been unsuccessful, mainly on the ground that it...

Three years after the controversial change of the British market design from compulsory Pool with capacity payments to decentralised energy-only New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) market framework, we compare the two designs in terms of investment incentives. We review the biases of the...

Merchant electricity transmission investment is a practically relevant example of an unregulated investment with monopoly properties. However, while leaving the investment decision to the market, the regulator may decide to prohibit capacity withholding with a must-offer provision. This paper...

The European Commission proposed to reform the Electricity and Gas Directives to improve access to transmission, increase cross-border capacity, and fully open the electricity and gas markets. The California electricity crisis has weakened support for liberalisation, removed the commitment to...

In most wholesale electricity markets generators must submit stepfunction offers of supply to a uniform price auction, and the market is cleared at the price of the most expensive offer needed to meet realised demand. Such markets can most elegantly be modelled as the purestrategy, Nash...

Modern theoretical principles to govern the design of incentive regulation mechanisms are reviewed and discussed. General issues associated with applying these principles in practice are identified. Examples of the actual application of incentive r egulation mechanisms to the regulation of...

New Zealand is the only country to date to have implemented forced ownership unbundling of electricity distribution from the rest of the electricity supply industry (in 1998). This paper examines the impact of this policy on electricity prices, quality of service and costs. We find that...

In this paper we examine the effects of interest group pressure and the structure of political institutions on infrastructure deployment by state-owned electric utilities in a panel of 78 countries during the period 1970 – 1994. We consider two factors that jointly influence the rate of...