IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/2149.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hayek and the Texas blackout

Author

Listed:
  • Littlechild, S.
  • Kiesling, L.

Abstract

Was the Texas blackout a market failure or regulatory failure? The economist Hayek has been adduced in support of both views. Hayek would have approved the competitive Texas system, including ERCOT. His likely view on the scarcity pricing framework is less clear, and the recent regulatory implementation of the "circuit breaker" was problematic. There is now a need to revise the scarcity pricing framework in the light of recent events, and to reflect ever-changing market conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Littlechild, S. & Kiesling, L., 2021. "Hayek and the Texas blackout," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2149, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:2149
    Note: sl304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe2149.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William W. Hogan, 2013. "Electricity Scarcity Pricing Through Operating Reserves," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    2. von Hayek, Friedrich August, 1989. "The Pretence of Knowledge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(6), pages 3-7, December.
    3. Kiesling, Lynne, 2005. "Using Economic Experiments to Test Electricity Policy," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(9), pages 43-50, November.
    4. Joskow, Paul L., 2008. "Capacity payments in imperfect electricity markets: Need and design," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 159-170, September.
    5. Boettke, Peter & Coyne, Christopher (ed.), 2015. "The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199811762.
    6. Andrew N. Kleit & L. Lynne Kiesling, 2009. "Electricity Restructuring: The Texas Story," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 50474, September.
    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. Keppler, Jan Horst & Quemin, Simon & Saguan, Marcelo, 2022. "Why the sustainable provision of low-carbon electricity needs hybrid markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Kazi Sifatul Islam & Samiul Hasan & Tamal Chowdhury & Hemal Chowdhury & Sadiq M. Sait, 2022. "Outage Survivability Investigation of a PV/Battery/CHP System in a Hospital Building in Texas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-14, November.

    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. Keppler, Jan Horst & Quemin, Simon & Saguan, Marcelo, 2022. "Why the sustainable provision of low-carbon electricity needs hybrid markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Growitsch, Christian & Just, Lisa & Pedell, Burkhard, 2014. "Risk Assessment of Investments in Energy-only and Capacity Markets," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 68(3), pages 181-188.
    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. Simshauser, P. & Gilmore, J., 2020. "Is the NEM broken? Policy discontinuity and the 2017-2020 investment megacycle," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2048, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Simshauser, Paul & Tian, Yuan & Whish-Wilson, Patrick, 2015. "Vertical integration in energy-only electricity markets," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 35-56.
    6. Darcy W E Allen, 2020. "When Entrepreneurs Meet:The Collective Governance of New Ideas," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number q0269, January.
    7. Simshauser, Paul, 2020. "Merchant renewables and the valuation of peaking plant in energy-only markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Simshauser, Paul, 2022. "Rooftop solar PV and the peak load problem in the NEM's Queensland region," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    9. Paul Simshauser, 2021. "Lessons from Australia's National Electricity Market 1998-2018: strengths and weaknesses of the reform experience," Chapters, in: Jean-Michel Glachant & Paul L. Joskow & Michael G. Pollitt (ed.), Handbook on Electricity Markets, chapter 9, pages 242-286, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Zappa, William & Junginger, Martin & van den Broek, Machteld, 2021. "Can liberalised electricity markets support decarbonised portfolios in line with the Paris Agreement? A case study of Central Western Europe," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    11. Thomaßen, Georg & Redl, Christian & Bruckner, Thomas, 2022. "Will the energy-only market collapse? On market dynamics in low-carbon electricity systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    12. Khezr, Peyman & Nepal, Rabindra, 2021. "On the viability of energy-capacity markets under decreasing marginal costs," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    13. Simshauser, Paul & Gilmore, Joel, 2022. "Climate change policy discontinuity & Australia's 2016-2021 renewable investment supercycle," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    14. Peter Cramton & Emmanuele Bobbio & David Malec & Pat Sujarittanonta, 2022. "Electricity Markets in Transition: A Multi-Decade Micro-Model of Entry and Exit in Advanced Wholesale Markets," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 183, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    15. Simshauser, Paul, 2019. "Missing money, missing policy and Resource Adequacy in Australia's National Electricity Market," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Emmanuele Bobbio & Simon Brandkamp & Stephanie Chan & Peter Cramton & David Malec & Lucy Yu, 2022. "Price Responsive Demand in Britain's Electricity Market," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 185, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    17. Simshauser, Paul, 2018. "On intermittent renewable generation & the stability of Australia's National Electricity Market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-19.
    18. Tsaousoglou, Georgios & Petsinis, Konstantinos & Makris, Prodromos & Skoteinos, Iraklis & Efthymiopoulos, Nikolaos & Varvarigos, Emmanouel, 2021. "A shortage pricing mechanism for capacity remuneration with simulation for the Greek electricity balancing market," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Traber, Thure, 2017. "Capacity Remuneration Mechanisms for Reliability in the Integrated European Electricity Market: Effects on Welfare and Distribution through 2023," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-14.
    20. Michail Chronopoulos, Derek Bunn, and Afzal Siddiqui, 2014. "Optionality and Policymaking in Re-Transforming the British Power Market," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hayek; Texas blackout; scarcity pricing; retail electricity competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:cam:camdae:2149. 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: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    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.