Vertical separation of generation from electricity retailing has often been required as a condition of electricity market liberalisation. A well-developed and liquid contracts market is similarly suggested as necessary to manage the resulting wholesale market risks, which risks are further exacerbated by competition. Such contracts markets are rare, however, and increasingly evidence is emergin...

Almost all research into the operations and behavior of salespeople has focused on sales at the retail level. But in many supply chains, manufacturers use a sales force to promote sales and improve coordination with retailers. In this note, we add an important piece to the science of sales operations by investigating the impact of two primary tasks performed by wholesale-salespersons: (1) enhan...

We consider a supply chain in which a manufacturer sells to a procure-to-stock retailer facing a newsvendor problem with a forecast update. Under a wholesale price contract, the retailer waits as long as she can and optimally places her order after observing the forecast update. We show that the retailer’s wait-and-decide strategy, induced by the wholesale price contract, hinders the manufactur...

With the introduction of the Euro, a single European money market has emerged. Further wholesale financial markets are considered to be highly integrated within the European Union. However, integration in retail financial markets is less advanced. For measuring financial market integration this distinction between wholesale and retail markets becomes crucial. There is a wide literature relating...

This paper details the development and evaluation of AstonTAC, an energy broker that successfully participated in the 2012 Power Trading Agent Competition (Power TAC). AstonTAC buys electrical energy from the wholesale market and sells it in the retail market. The main focus of the paper is on the broker’s bidding strategy in the wholesale market. In particular, it employs Markov Decision Proce...

I present a vertical differentiation model to assess the quality-wise strategy of an incumbent telecommunications operator under open access regimes. I show that it is always profitable for an incumbent subject to wholesale regulation to degrade wholesale quality in a non-recoverable fashion. The findings are robust to the number of competitors and the price cap level, unlike those predicted by...

We employ a stylized model of the electricity industry to examine the effects of restructuring on capacity investments, retail prices and welfare, allowing for uncertain demand. We consider the following market configurations: (i) integrated monopoly, (ii) integrated duopoly with wholesale trade, and (iii) separated duopoly with wholesale trade. We find that generators install sufficient capaci...