One of the greatest challenges faced by the European electricity sector at present, and the foreseeable future, is the need to meet stringent environmental objectives designed to mitigate the risk of costly climate change. This article surveys the main elements of the economics of climate...

We analyze the impact of a merger on firms' incentives to innovate. We show that the merging parties always decrease their innovation efforts post-merger while the outsiders to the merger respond by increasing their effort. A merger tends to reduce overall innovation. Consumers are always worse...

This paper reviews the assessment of efficiency claims in recent EU mergers. It focuses on three broad issues:(a) whether efficiencies should be distinguished from other types of "pro-competitive effects";(b) how to establish the pass-on to consumers from efficiencies, and to balance this...

This report provides an overview of the main competition and regulatory issues in the Spanish gas and electricity markets, setting them in the broader context of the liberalisation of the European energy market. Public policy in energy markets needs to reconcile a number of different objectives,...