Imperfect information about product attributes inhibits efficiency in many choice settings, but can be overcome by providing simple, low-cost information. Using a field experiment, we test the effect of high-frequency information about residential electricity usage on the price elasticity of demand. Informed households are three standard deviations more responsive to temporary price increases, ...

In this paper we present a new approach to evaluate the environmental efficiency of decision making units. We propose a model that describes a two-stage process consisting of a production and an end-of-pipe abatement stage with the environmental efficiency being determined by the efficiency of both stages. Taking the dependencies between the two stages into account, we show how nonparametric me...

We estimate the development effects of electrification across Brazil over the period 1960–2000. We simulate a time series of hypothetical electricity grids for Brazil for the period 1960–2000 that show how the grid would have evolved had infrastructure investments been made based solely on geography-based cost considerations. Using the model as an instrument, we document large positive effects ...

The market power of the incumbents means that average pool prices are set by the costs of entry. Reforms which raise entry costs will be proposed and should be resisted. Reforms to capacity payments may have little effect on prices, but could affect system security. The values of VOLL and LOLP appear grossly incorrect, and if changed might affect reserve margins and the allocation of investment...

A theory advanced in regulatory hearings holds that market performance will be improved if one side of themarket is forced to publicly reveal preferences. For example, wholesale electricity producers claim that retail electricity consumers would pay lower prices if wholesale public utility demand is disclosed to producers. Experimental markets studied here featured decentralized, privately nego...

Electric vehicles have a unique potential to transform personal transportation. We analyze this transition with dynamic model capturing falling costs of electric vehicles, decreasing pollution from electricity, and increasing vehicle substitutability. Our calibration the US market shows gasoline is not optimal at current substitutability: production ban would large deadweight loss. At higher su...

A production technology specification in electricity distribution leads to many product aspects that together with detailed input data gives a high dimensionality. Non-parametric methods may give meaningful results when parametric methods lack degrees of freedom, but have problems with collinear or irrelevant variables. Aggregate efficiency estimates will be little affected, but rates of transf...

Regulatory reform in the Nordic electricity-supply markets has resulted in a single integrated Nordic electricity market. This paper performs an econometric study of market power in the spot market of Nord Pool, the joint Nordic power exchange. I use a dynamic extension of the Bresnahan-Lau model, and weekly data for the period from 1996 through April 1999. To my knowledge, this is the first st...

The European Commission's attempt to update the Electricity and Gas Directives to underwrite unbundling and full liberalisation coincides with the California electricity crisis. The paper argues that compared to the US, much of the EU lacks the necessary legislative and regulatory power to mitigate generator market power. Unless markets are made more contestable, transmission capacity expanded ...

this paper identifies the major political and economic constraints that impact the demand-side of electricity industry re-structuring processes. These constraints have been a major barrier to implementing effective restructuring processes in many countries, particularly those in the developing world. The paper describes how these constraints have been addressed and how this has harmed market ef...