This fine collection of original essays is in recognition of Colin Robinson, who has been at the forefront of thinking in energy economics for over 30 years. Energy in a Competitive Market brings together both prominent academics and practitioners to honour his outstanding and unique...

Britain was one of the first countries to introduce competition to retail energy markets in 1998; after a decade of choice, around half of its residential consumers have switched supplier. This paper presents evidence on consumer and supplier behaviour over the decade since the markets were opened...

The residential UK electricity market was opened for the first time in 1999, introducing choice of supplier, and about 40 percent of households changed supplier in the first four years. After three years price caps were removed. We review this process and assess the competitiveness of the market...

This paper describes the evolution of supply competition in the UK residential energy market and the extent to which consumers in general, and vulnerable households in particular, have benefited from liberalization. It concludes that earlier fears about higher prices for vulnerable groups from...

Consumer choice is increasingly recognised as a crucial factor in competition policy. To illustrate the implications of such choice we present an investment model of the switching choice in the UK residential natural gas market and examine responses to a specially commissioned survey of nearly...

The British domestic gas market is to be opened to competition from April 1996; within 24 hours of enabling legislation being confirmed (Queen’s Speech, 1994),British Gas (BG) announced the first significant change in gas tariff structure since it had been privatised nine years earlier. The...

Economic regulation of firms with market power has placed increasing emphasis on incentive-based regulation such as price caps. We focus on the effect of regulation as distinct from ownership, and identify the effect of two different regulatory schemes on both publicly and privately owned...

The residential UK electricity market was opened for the first time in 1999, introducing choice of supplier, and about 40% of households changed supplier in the first four years. After three years price caps were removed. We review this process and assess the competitiveness of the market by...

This paper assesses the ability of consumers to choose between alternative suppliers. Across two independent datasets from the UK electricity market we find that consumers switching exclusively for price reasons appropriated only a quarter to half of the maximum gains available. While such...