IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0406003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Charges, costs and market power in the deregulated UK electricity retail market

Author

Listed:
  • Evens SALIES

    (University of Perpignan & of Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne)

  • Catherine WADDAMS

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract

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 examining how the charges levied by suppliers depend on cost and demand factors for three different payment methods and consumption levels. We also identify signs of additional market power of incumbency and the effect of levying a tariff with no fixed charge. We find that both cost and demand factors affect charges, and the relationship varies for different payment methods and consumption levels; and that tariffs with no fixed element have different effects for different payment methods. We also conclude that considerable market power seems to remain with potentially adverse distributional effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Evens SALIES & Catherine WADDAMS, 2004. "Charges, costs and market power in the deregulated UK electricity retail market," Industrial Organization 0406003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0406003
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 23. To appear in The Energy Journal in July 2004 A .pdf version of this paper is available at
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/io/papers/0406/0406003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fudenberg, Drew & Tirole, Jean, 1984. "The Fat-Cat Effect, the Puppy-Dog Ploy, and the Lean and Hungry Look," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 361-366, May.
    2. Otero, Jesus & Waddams Price, Catherine, 2001. "Price Discrimination, Regulation and Entry in the UK Residential Electricity Market," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 161-175, July.
    3. ., 1998. "Stationary State," Chapters, in: Heinz D. Kurz & Neri Salvadori (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Classical Economics, volume 0, chapter 127, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    5. Catherine Waddams & Ruth Hancock, 1998. "Distributional effects of liberalising UK residential utility markets," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 295-319, August.
    6. Monica Giulietti & Catherine Waddams Price & Michael Waterson, 2005. "Consumer Choice and Competition Policy: a Study of UK Energy Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 949-968, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7189 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7189 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7172 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Evens Salies, 2008. "Mergers in the GB electricity market: effects on retail charges," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(11), pages 1483-1490.
    5. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7189 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7189 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Evens Salies & Catherine Waddams, 2003. "Pricing structure in the deregulated UK electricity market," Working Papers hal-03592457, HAL.
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7172 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Michal Grajek, 2003. "Estimating Network Effects and Compatibility in Mobile Telecommunications," CIG Working Papers SP II 2003-26, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    10. Ariel Casarin, 2014. "Regulated price reforms and unregulated substitutes: the case of residential piped gas in Argentina," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 34-56, February.
    11. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7068 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7068 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7172 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7068 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Stephen Littlechild, 2019. "Promoting competition and protecting customers? Regulation of the GB retail energy market 2008–2016," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 107-139, April.
    16. Amountzias, Chrysovalantis & Dagdeviren, Hulya & Patokos, Tassos, 2017. "Pricing decisions and market power in the UK electricity market: A VECM approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 467-473.
    17. Kubota, Keiichi & Takehara, Hitoshi, 2019. "Firm-level innovation by Japanese family firms: Empirical analysis using multidimensional innovation measures," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    18. Andrew Eckert & Douglas West, 2006. "Exit and Upgrading in Response to Entry: The Case of Gasoline Retailing," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 351-372.
    19. Stephen Davies, Catherine Waddams Price, and Chris M. Wilson, 2014. "Nonlinear Pricing and Tariff Differentiation: Evidence from the British Electricity Market," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7068 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7172 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Football spectator no-show behaviour in the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(45), pages 4882-4901, September.
    23. S. Arunachalam & Sridhar N. Ramaswami & Pol Herrmann & Doug Walker, 2018. "Innovation pathway to profitability: the role of entrepreneurial orientation and marketing capabilities," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 744-766, July.
    24. Timothy Erickson & Toni M. Whited, 2000. "Measurement Error and the Relationship between Investment and q," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 1027-1057, October.
    25. Juan‐Pablo Montero & Juan Ignacio Guzman, 2010. "Output‐Expanding Collusion In The Presence Of A Competitive Fringe," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 106-126, March.
    26. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    27. Fors, Gunnar & Zejan, Mario, 1996. "Overseas R&D by Multinationals in foreign Centers of Excellence," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 111, Stockholm School of Economics.
    28. Rodrigo M. S. Moita & Claudio Paiva, 2013. "Political Price Cycles in Regulated Industries: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 94-121, February.
    29. Butler, Marty & Leone, Andrew J. & Willenborg, Michael, 2004. "An empirical analysis of auditor reporting and its association with abnormal accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 139-165, June.
    30. Baiyegunhi, L.J.S. & Oppong, B.B., 2016. "Commercialisation of mopane worm (Imbrasia belina) in rural households in Limpopo Province, South Africa," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 141-148.
    31. MacKinnon, J G, 1989. "Heteroskedasticity-Robust Tests for Structural Change," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 77-92.
    32. Fenech, Jean-Pierre & Skully, Michael & Xuguang, Han, 2014. "Franking credits and market reactions: Evidence from the Australian convertible security market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-19.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electricity Retail; Market Power; Non-linear Tariffs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wpa:wuwpio:0406003. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.