IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v34y2013i1p125-154.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Competitive is Cross-border Trade of Electricity? Theory and Evidence from European Electricity Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Georg Gebhardt
  • Felix Hffler

Abstract

Integrating national markets is a major policy target in the European energy market. Yet, wholesale prices for electricity still differ significantly. Whether these price differences are caused only by limited interconnector capacities or also by lack of cross-border competition is an open question. To address this question, we develop a new approach to determine to which extent price differences stem from limited participation in cross-border trade. We derive a theoretical integration benchmark, using Grossman’s (1976) notion of a rational expectations equilibrium. We compare the benchmark to data from European electricity markets. The data reject the integration hypothesis and indicate that well informed traders do not engage in cross-border trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Georg Gebhardt & Felix Hffler, 2013. "How Competitive is Cross-border Trade of Electricity? Theory and Evidence from European Electricity Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 34(1), pages 125-154, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:34:y:2013:i:1:p:125-154
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.34.1.6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.34.1.6
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.34.1.6?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 2001. "Violating the Law of One Price: Should We Make a Federal Case Out of It?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(1), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Zachmann, Georg, 2008. "Electricity wholesale market prices in Europe: Convergence?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1659-1671, July.
    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. Nepal, R. & Jamasb, T., 2011. "Market Integration, Efficiency, and Interconnectors: The Irish Single Electricity Market," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1144, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Georg Gebhardt and Felix Hoffler, 2013. "How Competitive is Cross-border Trade of Electricity? Theory and Evidence from European Electricity Markets," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    3. Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2012. "Interconnections and market integration in the Irish Single Electricity Market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 425-434.
    4. Hasan, Mudassar & Arif, Muhammad & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Ngo, Quang-Thanh & Taghizadeh–Hesary, Farhad, 2021. "Time-frequency connectedness between Asian electricity sectors," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 208-224.
    5. Growitsch Christian & Nepal Rabindra & Stronzik Marcus, 2015. "Price Convergence and Information Efficiency in German Natural Gas Markets," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 87-103, February.
    6. Florian Ziel & Rick Steinert & Sven Husmann, 2015. "Forecasting day ahead electricity spot prices: The impact of the EXAA to other European electricity markets," Papers 1501.00818, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2015.
    7. David Fielding & Kalvinder Shields, 2011. "Regional Asymmetries in the Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks on Prices: Evidence from US Cities," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(1), pages 79-103, February.
    8. James E. Rauch & Vitor Trindade, 2000. "Information and Globalization: Wage Co-Movements, Labor Demand Elasticity, and Conventional Trade Liberalization," NBER Working Papers 7671, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Han, Lin & Kordzakhia, Nino & Trück, Stefan, 2020. "Volatility spillovers in Australian electricity markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    10. Böckers, Veit & Heimeshoff, Ulrich, 2014. "The extent of European power markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 102-111.
    11. Das, Samarjit & Bhattacharya, Kaushik, 2004. "Price Convergence across Regions in India," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 1/2005, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    12. Grossmann, Axel & Kim, Jintae, 2022. "The impact of U.S. dollar movements and U.S. dollar states on non-perishable commodity prices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    13. Dvir, Eyal & Strasser, Georg, 2018. "Does marketing widen borders? Cross-country price dispersion in the European car market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 134-149.
    14. Ladislav KRISTOUFEK & Petra LUNACKOVA, 2013. "Long-term Memory in Electricity Prices: Czech Market Evidence," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 63(5), pages 407-424, November.
    15. Glachant, Jean-Michel & Ruester, Sophia, 2014. "The EU internal electricity market: Done forever?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-7.
    16. Shi Chen & Wolfgang Karl Hardle & Brenda L'opez Cabrera, 2020. "Regularization Approach for Network Modeling of German Power Derivative Market," Papers 2009.09739, arXiv.org.
    17. Lindé, Jesper & Pescatori, Andrea, 2019. "The macroeconomic effects of trade tariffs: Revisiting the Lerner symmetry result," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 52-69.
    18. Do, Hung Xuan & Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2020. "Electricity market integration, decarbonisation and security of supply: Dynamic volatility connectedness in the Irish and Great Britain markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    19. Figueiredo, Nuno Carvalho & Silva, Patrícia Pereira da & Cerqueira, Pedro A., 2016. "It is windy in Denmark: Does market integration suffer?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(P2), pages 1385-1399.
    20. Shu-Ling Chen & John D. Jackson & Hyeongwoo Kim & Pramesti Resiandini, 2014. "What Drives Commodity Prices?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1455-1468.

    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:34:y:2013:i:1:p:125-154. 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.