The German response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident was possibly the most significant change of policy towards nuclear power outside Japan, leading to a sudden and very significant shift in the underlying power generation structure in Germany. This provides a very useful natural...

In the EU electricity industry, many Vertically Integrated Utilities (VIUs) have ownership both of electricity generators and of transmission, hence VIU-owned or allied generators often are bidders in auctions for VIU-owned transmission. In Van Koten (2006) I show that welfare suffers and the...

Despite efforts made by European Commission to liberalize electricity markets and foster integration, there are still significant barriers to free competition. Until now, Romania was one of the countries that have been compliant to the European Union's electricity directives, being ahead of...

The Russian Federation is in the process of making major structural changes to its railway and electricity sectors. Both sectors will be at least partly vertically disintegrated, with the aim of creating competition in the "upstream" sector while maintaining state ownership and control of the...

One of the most heated debates in the current efforts to re-write the Communications Act has been whether the federal government should impose "Network Neutrality" requirements on broadband service providers. While we argue neither for nor against the need for Network Neutrality legislation in...

We analyze optimal pricing policies in local telecommunications subject to bypass for the access of long-distance carriers. We first consider the case of a regulated monopoly that operates the local network and has access to an additional technology (bypass) more efficient for large customers....

This Policy Paper demonstrates that policies that hinder a new entrant's ability to sell video programming, such as forcing entrants to obtain a local cable franchise agreement, will strongly diminish that entrant's incentive to deploy fiber to low-income households. Using publicly-available...

Lack of transmission capacity hampers the integration of the European electricity market, and thereby precludes reaping the full benefits of competition. We investigate the extent to which transmission grid expansion promotes competition, efficiency and welfare. This work proposes a three-stage...