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Strategic Withholding through Production Failures

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  • Sara Fogelberg and Ewa Lazarczyk

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence indicates that electricity producers use production failures to disguise strategic reductions of capacity in order to influence prices, but systematic evidence is lacking. We use an instrumental variable approach and data from the Swedish electricity market to examine such behavior. In a market without strategic withholding, reported production failures should not depend directly on the market price. We show that marginal producers in part base their decision to report a failure on prices, which indicates that production failures are a result of economic incentives as well as of technical problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Fogelberg and Ewa Lazarczyk, 2019. "Strategic Withholding through Production Failures," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:ej40-5-carlson
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    Cited by:

    1. Erik Lundin, 2021. "Market Power and Joint Ownership: Evidence from Nuclear Plants in Sweden," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 485-536, September.
    2. Hassanzadeh Moghimi, Farzad & Boomsma, Trine K. & Siddiqui, Afzal S., 2024. "Transmission planning in an imperfectly competitive power sector with environmental externalities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Farzad Hassanzadeh Moghimi & Yihsu Chen & Afzal S. Siddiqui, 2023. "Flexible supply meets flexible demand: prosumer impact on strategic hydro operations," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-35, December.
    4. Benatia, David & Billette de Villemeur, Etienne, 2019. "Strategic Reneging in Sequential Imperfect Markets," MPRA Paper 105280, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2020.
    5. Lundin, Erik & Tangerås, Thomas P., 2020. "Cournot competition in wholesale electricity markets: The Nordic power exchange, Nord Pool," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    6. Arina Nikandrova & Jevgenijs Steinbuks, 2017. "Contracting for the second best in dysfunctional electricity markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 41-71, February.
    7. Bergler, Julian & Heim, Sven & Hüschelrath, Kai, 2017. "Strategic capacity withholding through failures in the German-Austrian electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 210-221.
    8. Bataille, Marc & Bodnar, Olivia & Steinmetz, Alexander & Thorwarth, Susanne, 2019. "Screening instruments for monitoring market power — The Return on Withholding Capacity Index (RWC)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 227-237.
    9. Durmaz, Tunç & Acar, Sevil & Kızılkaya, Simay, 2024. "Generation failures, strategic withholding, and capacity payments in the Turkish electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Bataille, Marc & Bodnar, Olivia & Steinmetz, Alexander & Thorwarth, Susanne, 2019. "Screening instruments for monitoring market power: The return on withholding capacity index (RWC)," DICE Discussion Papers 311, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    11. Leonardo Madio & Aldo Pignataro, 2022. "Collusion Sustainability with a Capacity Constrained Firm," CESifo Working Paper Series 10170, CESifo.
    12. Leonardo Madio & Aldo Pignataro, 2022. "Collusion sustainability with a capacity constrained firm," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0295, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".

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