IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/econwp/qt7bh5f7rn.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Electricity Merger Policy in the Shadow of Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Gilbert, Richard J
  • Newberry, David M

Abstract

Electricity mergers pose distinctive challenges for competition policy - in market definition and for modelling price impacts in markets with no storage, inelastic short-run demand and transmission constraints. FERC’s pivotal supply test for screening mergers is an improvement on market shares, but still potentially misleading. We counter-propose competitive residual demand analysis. The EU is poorly placed to deal with domestic mergers that impact external energy flows. The paper argues that vertical (convergent) mergers between electricity and gas raise additional concerns, given current EU gas market power, exemplified by the E.On-Ruhrgas merger. The form of the Emissions Trading System amplifies these concerns.

Suggested Citation

  • Gilbert, Richard J & Newberry, David M, 2006. "Electricity Merger Policy in the Shadow of Regulation," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7bh5f7rn, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt7bh5f7rn
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7bh5f7rn.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allaz Blaise & Vila Jean-Luc, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-16, February.
    2. David M. Newbery, 2005. "Electricity liberalization in Britain: The quest for a satisfactory wholesale market design," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 43-70.
    3. Bogorad, Cynthia S. & Penn, David W., 2001. "Cost-of-Service Rates to Market-Based Rates to Price Caps to ?!#?#!?," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 61-72, May.
    4. Perry, Martin K., 1989. "Vertical integration: Determinants and effects," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 183-255, Elsevier.
    5. Justine S. Hastings & Richard J. Gilbert, 2005. "Market Power, Vertical Integration And The Wholesale Price Of Gasoline," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 469-492, December.
    6. Green, Richard J & Newbery, David M, 1992. "Competition in the British Electricity Spot Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 929-953, October.
    7. Hunger, David, 2003. "Analyzing Gas and Electric Convergence Mergers: A Supply Curve Is Worth a Thousand Words," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 161-173, September.
    8. Baker, Jonathan B. & Bresnahan, Timothy F., 1988. "Estimating the residual demand curve facing a single firm," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 283-300.
    9. Ordover, Janusz A & Saloner, Garth & Salop, Steven C, 1990. "Equilibrium Vertical Foreclosure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 127-142, March.
    10. Blaise Allaz & Jean-Luc Vila, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Post-Print hal-00511806, HAL.
    11. Michael A. Salinger, 1988. "Vertical Mergers and Market Foreclosure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(2), pages 345-356.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chemla, Gilles & Touzi, Nizar & Aïd, René & Porchet, Arnaud, 2011. "Hedging and Vertical Integration in Electricity Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 8313, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11029 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gilbert, Richard J & Newberry, David M, 2006. "Electricity Merger Policy in the Shadow of Regulation," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7bh5f7rn, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Richard Gilbert & David Newbery, 2008. "Analytical Screens for Electricity Mergers," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 32(3), pages 217-239, May.
    3. Simshauser, P., 2020. "Merchant utilities and boundaries of the firm: vertical integration in energy-only markets," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2039, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Bruno Larue & Olivier Bonroy, 2009. "Seemingly Competitive Food Retail Regulations: Who Do They Really Help?," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 57(3), pages 305-324, September.
    5. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David, 2010. "The supply function equilibrium and its policy implications for wholesale electricity auctions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 209-226, December.
    6. Rakesh Basant & Pulak Mishra, 2019. "Impact of Vertical Integration on Market Power in Indian Manufacturing Sector During the Post-Reform Period," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 561-581, December.
    7. Jaideep Shenoy, 2012. "An Examination of the Efficiency, Foreclosure, and Collusion Rationales for Vertical Takeovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1482-1501, August.
    8. Paul Twomey & Richard Green & Karsten Neuhoff & David Newbery, 2005. "A Review of the Monitoring of Market Power: The Possible Roles of TSOs in Monitoring for Market Power Issues in Congested Transmission Systems," Working Papers 0502, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
    9. Bunn, Derek W. & Martoccia, Maria & Ochoa, Patricia & Kim, Haein & Ahn, Nam-Sung & Yoon, Yong-Beom, 2010. "Vertical integration and market power: A model-based analysis of restructuring in the Korean electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3710-3716, July.
    10. Safarzynska, Karolina & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2011. "Industry evolution, rational agents and the transition to sustainable electricity production," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 6440-6452, October.
    11. Moritz Bohland & Sebastian Schwenen, 2020. "Technology Policy and Market Structure: Evidence from the Power Sector," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1856, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. van Koten, Silvester & Ortmann, Andreas, 2013. "Structural versus behavioral remedies in the deregulation of electricity markets: An experimental investigation motivated by policy concerns," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 256-265.
    13. Gérard Gaudet & Ngo Van Long & Antoine Soubeyran, 1999. "Upstream-Downstream Specialization by Integrated Firms in a Partially Integrated Industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 14(4), pages 321-335, June.
    14. Zanaj Skerdilajda, 2010. "Successive Oligopolies and Decreasing Returns," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, November.
    15. Willems, Bert & Rumiantseva, Ina & Weigt, Hannes, 2009. "Cournot versus Supply Functions: What does the data tell us?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 38-47, January.
    16. Karp, Larry & STEFANOU, SPIRO, 1991. "Polish Agriculture in Transition: Does it Hurt to be Slapped by an Invisible Hand?," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt1vt3c57h, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    17. Schill, Wolf-Peter, 2011. "Electric Vehicles in Imperfect Electricity Markets: The case of Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 39(10), pages 6178-6189.
    18. Rubin, Ofir D. & Babcock, Bruce A., 2011. "A novel approach for modeling deregulated electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2711-2721, May.
    19. David Newbery, 2008. "Predicting market power in wholesale electricity markets," Working Papers EPRG 0821, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    20. Sijm, Jos & Chen, Yihsu & Hobbs, Benjamin F., 2012. "The impact of power market structure on CO2 cost pass-through to electricity prices under quantity competition – A theoretical approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1143-1152.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt7bh5f7rn. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ibbrkus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.