IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v20y1999i4p65-88.html

Market Power in Electricity Markets: Beyond Concentration Measures

Author

Listed:
  • Severin Borenstein
  • James Bushnell
  • Christopher R. Knittel

Abstract

The wave of electricity market restructuring both within the United States and abroad has brought the issue of horizontal market power to the forefront of energy policy. Traditionally, estimation and prediction of market power has relied heavily on concentration measures. In this paper, we discuss the weaknesses of concentration measures as a viable measure of market power in the electricity industry, and we propose an alternative method based oil market simulations that take advantage of existing plant level data. We discuss results from previous studies the authors have performed, and present new results that allow for the detection of threshold demand levels where market power is likely to be a problem. In addition, we analyze the impact of that recent divestitures in the California electricity market will have on estimated market power. We close with a discussion of the policy implications of the results.

Suggested Citation

  • Severin Borenstein & James Bushnell & Christopher R. Knittel, 1999. "Market Power in Electricity Markets: Beyond Concentration Measures," The Energy Journal, , vol. 20(4), pages 65-88, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:20:y:1999:i:4:p:65-88
    DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol20-No4-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol20-No4-3
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol20-No4-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    2. repec:aen:journl:1997v18-01-a03 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bergman, Lars & Andersson, Bo, 1995. "Market Structure and the Price of Electricity: An ex ante Analysis of the deregulated Swedish Electricity Market," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 47, Stockholm School of Economics.
    4. repec:aen:journl:1995v16-02-a05 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:aen:journl:1997v18-04-a01 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:aen:journl:1998v19-03-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Smeers, Y., 1997. "Computable equilibrium models and the restructuring of the European electricity and gas markets," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1280, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    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. Sorgard, Lars, 1997. "Domestic merger policy in an international oligopoly: The Nordic market for electricity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 239-253, May.
    2. Paizs, László & Mészáros, Mátyás Tamás, 2003. "Piachatalmi problémák modellezése a dereguláció utáni magyar áramtermelő piacon [Modelling problems of market power on the Hungarian electricity-generation market after deregulation]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 735-764.
    3. Maria Kopsakangas-Savolainen, 2003. "Quantity versus Price Competition in the Deregulated Finnish Electricity Markets," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 51-60, Autumn.
    4. Sulamaa, Pekka, . "Essays in Deregulated Finnish and Nordic Electricity Markets," ETLA A, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, number 34, June.
    5. Rajnish Kamat & Shmuel Oren, 2004. "Two-settlement Systems for Electricity Markets under Network Uncertainty and Market Power," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 5-37, January.
    6. Maroeska G. Boots & Fieke A.M. Rijkers & Benjamin F. Hobbs, 2004. "Trading in the Downstream European Gas Market: A Successive Oligopoly Approach," The Energy Journal, , vol. 25(3), pages 73-102, July.
    7. Chyong, Chi Kong & Hobbs, Benjamin F., 2014. "Strategic Eurasian natural gas market model for energy security and policy analysis: Formulation and application to South Stream," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 198-211.
    8. Gal, Nurit & Milstein, Irena & Tishler, Asher & Woo, C.K., 2019. "Investment in electricity capacity under fuel cost uncertainty: Dual-fuel and a mix of single-fuel technologies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 518-532.
    9. Ibrahim Abada & Andreas Ehrenmann, 2018. "A New Game Theoretical Approach for Modeling Export Energy Markets Equilibria," The Energy Journal, , vol. 39(5), pages 55-84, September.
    10. E. Villemeur & Helmuth Cremer & Bernard Roy & Joëlle Toledano, 2007. "Worksharing, access and bypass: the structure of prices in the postal sector," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 67-85, August.
    11. Jianqiang Zhang & Weijun Zhong & Shue Mei, 2012. "Competitive effects of informative advertising in distribution channels," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 561-584, September.
    12. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Trindade, Andre & Yoshida, Renan C., 2020. "Direct-to-Consumer Sales by Manufacturers and Bargaining," MPRA Paper 105773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Francisco B. Galarza & Gabriella Wong, 2017. "The Impact of Price Information on Consumer Behavior: An Experiment," Working Papers 106, Peruvian Economic Association.
    14. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    15. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A. & Kotsogiannis, Christos, 2006. "Federal tax autonomy and the limits of cooperation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 317-329, March.
    16. Etienne Billette de Villemeur & Kevin Guittet, 2004. "Optimal structure of air transport services when environnemental costs are taken into account," Post-Print hal-01022242, HAL.
    17. Aurora García‐Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís, 2009. "Market Effects of Changes in Consumers' Social Responsibility," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 235-262, March.
    18. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2011. "Price Discrimination," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 22, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Leonard J. Mirman & Egas M. Salgueiro & Marc Santugini, 2013. "Integrating Real and Financial Decisions of the Firm," Cahiers de recherche 1333, CIRPEE.
    20. Hobbs, B.F. & Rijkers, F.A.M., 2005. "The More Cooperation, the More Competition? A Cournot Analysis of the Benefits of Electric Market Coupling," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0509, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    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:sae:enejou:v:20:y:1999:i:4:p:65-88. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.