This paper addresses a potential legal avenue using the Defense Production Act so the federal government may assist and/or take over private cyber security operations when there is intelligence of an imminent cyber attack on private, critical infrastructure. The hypothetical centers on an attack...

Greening the economy entails jobs contracting in “high-polluting” economic activities and expanding in environment-friendly activities. Minimizing the corresponding transition costs is crucial to accelerate decarbonisation and reduce displacement costs for affected workers. Using...

The COVID-19 crisis have once again elevated one of the most contentious themes in competition law and economics, namely how to deal with excessive pricing and price gouging, to the global stage. Dramatic, sudden price hikes on essential medicines and medical supplies (a practice known as price...

The COVID-19 crisis noted many reports of dramatic price increases of essential items such as face masks, hand sanitisers and disinfectants. Already in March 2020 the Competition Authorities in Europe, by way of a joint statement by European Competition Network and individual public...

This report contains three separate papers, each addressing selected issues concerning natural gas policy and security of gas supply in Europe. The over-arching themes are vulnerability (to supply disruptions, to supplier pricing power) and fragmentation; and measures designed to overcome them,...

The relationship between gasoline prices and the demand for vehicle fuel efficiency is important for environmental policy but poorly understood in the academic literature. We provide empirical evidence that automobile manufacturers price as if consumers respond to gasoline prices. We derive a...

In den letzten Jahren wird vermehrt die Sorge geäußert, dass die Energiewende die Sicherheit der Stromversorgung in Deutschland langfristig durch Engpässe und Stromausfälle gefährden könnte. Während der Ausbau von volatiler Stromerzeugung aus Wind- und Sonnenenergie mit hohem Tempo...

Die Lage der russischen Wirtschaft ist dramatisch. Um 3,7% ist die gesamtwirtschaftliche Leistung 2015 eingebrochen. Die verhängten Wirtschaftssanktionen sowie der Ölpreisverfall haben zu der Abwärtsspirale beigetragen. Doch die eigentlichen Schwächen der russischen Wirtschaft sind eher...

Unbundling of vertically integrated utilities has become an integral element in the regulation of network industries and has been implemented in many jurisdictions. The idea of separating the network, as the natural monopoly, from downstream retailing, which may be exposed to competition, is...

The movement to deregulate major industries over the past 40 years has produced large efficiency gains. However, distributional effects have been more difficult to assess. In the electricity sector, deregulation has vastly increased information available to market participants through the...