SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

"Vertical market power" is a contradiction in terms because "market power" is essentially horizontal-that is, it depends on relationships of firms within markets. FERC invokes the term to assess "convergence" mergers between electricity generators and natural gas suppliers. It misapplies Department of Justice guidelines for vertical mergers and fails to identify exceptions to a presumption that market power depends only on competitive conditions at any single stage. A three-stage test can assess whether convergence mergers resemble horizontal ones. The key stage is the third: A convergence merger is more problematic the less vertical it is-that is, if the acquiring generator had no prior dealings with the acquired gas supplier. FERC's analyses in leading...

Electricity Restructuring and Regional Air Pollution

Palavras-chave: Vertical mergers; Electricity restructuring; Vertical integration; Convergence; Energy regulation; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; L40; L94; L22; D43.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10871

Palmer, Karen L.; Burtraw, Dallas.

This paper investigates the regional air pollution effects that could result from new opportunities for inter-regional power transmission in the wake of more competitive electricity markets. The regional focus is important because of great regional variation in the vintage, efficiency and plant utilization rates of existing generating capacity, as well as differences in emission rates, cost of generation and electricity price. Increased competition in generation could open the door to changes in the regional profile of generation and emissions. We characterize the key determinant of changes in electricity generation and transmission as the relative cost of electricity among neighboring regions. In general, low cost regions are expected to export power...

Implementing Electricity Restructuring: Policies, Potholes, and Prospects

Palavras-chave: Air pollution; Electricity restructuring; Transmission; Environmental Economics and Policy; L94; Q25; Q28.

Ano: 1996

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10766

Brennan, Timothy J.; Palmer, Karen L.; Martinez, Salvador A..

Electricity is one of the last U.S. industries in which competition is replacing regulation. We briefly review the technology for producing and delivering power, the history of electricity policy, and recent state and international experience. We then outline the major questions facing policymakers as they decide whether, when, and how to implement restructuring. We conclude with some thoughts on the California electricity crisis and other political controversies. Although the California experience has come to define what it means for electricity markets to fail, most of the problems it raised are among those we know how to solve or prevent. The still unresolved make-or-break issue remains whether the cooperation necessary to maintain reliability is...

Electricity Restructuring: Consequences and Opportunities for the Environment

Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Regulation; Deregulation; Public Economics; L51; L94; D4.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10508

Burtraw, Dallas; Palmer, Karen L.; Heintzelman, Martin.

The universal theme of deregulation of the electricity industry is the dismantling of the exclusive franchise, opening up some segments of the industry to competition. Technological changes in generation have helped eliminate the perception that generation is a natural monopoly, but this change has not occurred in transmission and distribution services. Marketing functions have also been opened up to competition in many places. This paper includes a brief overview of the different approaches to restructuring that have been adopted in selected countries around the world. It also surveys the existing literature that explores various aspects of how electricity restructuring is likely to affect the environment. The effect of restructuring on the environment...

State and Federal Roles in Facilitating Electricity Competition: Legal and Economic Perspectives

Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Air quality; Incentive-based regulation; Technological change; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q28; L51; L94.

Ano: 2000

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10854

Jurisdictions have overlapping authority regarding electricity restructuring when a national authority and subnational regional governments-for example, states-both have a say. The initial sections of the paper review the division of regulatory authority over electricity markets in the United States, constitutional provisions, recent developments, and how federalist concerns have been manifested in antitrust and telecommunications. Justifications for using private markets rather than central governments suggest an efficiency approach to dividing authority, based on information, cross-border externalities, and agency, that is, the ability of a government to reflect the political preferences of its constituents. The goal is not to impose a "right" policy...

Market Failures in Real-Time Metering: A Theoretical Look

Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Federalism; Regulatory policy; Political Economy; H11; L94; L51; H77.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10802

Restructuring the electricity market may secure efficiencies by moving away from cost-of-service regulation, with typically (but not necessarily) time-invariant prices, and allowing prices to reflect how costs change. Charging "real time" prices requires that electricity use be measured according to when one uses it. Arguments that such real-time metering should be a policy objective promoted by subsidizing meters or delaying restructuring until meters are installed, require more than these potential benefits. They require positive externalities to imply that too few meters would be installed through private transactions. Real-time metering presents no systematic externalities when utilities must serve peak period users, and may present negative...

Demand-Side Management Programs Under Retail Electricity Competition

Palavras-chave: Real-time metering; Electricity restructuring; Deregulation; Rationing; Externalities; Industrial Organization; D45; D62; L11; L94.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10718

Demand-side management programs comprise subsidies from franchised electric utilities for the purchase of high-efficiency appliances; e.g., air conditioners. Competition in power generation threatens the viability of these programs. However, it should also reduce the warrant for them. Under regulation, the justification for such programs depends, somewhat paradoxically, on below marginal-cost pricing. Eliminating regulation should permit pricing flexibility to discourage excessive on-peak energy use. It should also eliminate the assurance of returns that may have encouraged overbuilding of generation capacity. Entrants and incumbent utilities should find it easier to offer "energy services," i.e., to bundle electricity with appliances, if consumers are too...

Do Lower Prices For Polluting Goods Make Environmental Externalities Worse?

Palavras-chave: Electricity restructuring; Energy conservation; Regulatory policy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; L51; L94; Q48.

Ano: 1998

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10615

Lower prices for polluting goods will increase their sales and the pollution that results from their production or use. Conventional intuition suggests that this relationship implies a greater need for environmental policy when prices of "dirty" goods fall. But the economic inefficiency resulting overproduction of polluting goods may fall, not rise, as the cost of producing those goods falls. While lower costs exacerbate overproduction, they also reduce the difference between private benefit and the total social cost--the sum of private and external costs--associated with that overproduction. We derive a test, based on readily observed or estimated parameters for conditions in which the latter effect outweighs the former. In such cases, making a dirty good...

Getting on the Map: The Political Economy of State-Level Electricity Restructuring

Palavras-chave: Environment; Regulatory policy; Externalities; Electricity restructuring; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q28; L51; L94.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10776

Ando, Amy Whritenour; Palmer, Karen L..

Retail competition in electricity markets is expected to lead to more efficient electricity supply, lower electricity prices, more innovation by suppliers and a greater variety of electric power service packages. However, only a handful of states have currently gone so far as to pass legislation and/or make regulatory decisions to establish retail wheeling. This paper analyzes a variety of factors that may influence the rate at which legislators and regulators move towards establishing retail competition. In general, we find that where one interest group dominates others in the struggle for influence over the decision makers, the net effect seems to push a state forward more quickly when retail wheeling is expected to yield large efficiency gains.