How does emissions trading influence the competitiveness of the German industry? By increasing the costs of domestic production, emissions trading may induce the relocation of industrial production and the associated emissions – e.g. to non-EU countries with few or no climate protection regulations. On behalf of the German Emissions Trading Authority (DEHSt) at the Federal Environment Agency, the impacts ...
In this paper we present an international cross-country benchmarking analysis for utility regulation of France and Germany, the two largest electricity distribution countries in Europe. We examine the relative performance of 99 French and 77 German distribution companies operating within two different market structures. This paper applies several parametric benchmarking approaches to assess the relative ...
We analyze potential gains from hypothetical mergers in local public transport using the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis with bias corrections by means of bootstrapping. Our sample consists of 41 public transport companies from Germany's most densely populated region, North Rhine-Westphalia. We merge them into geographically meaningful, larger units that operate partially on a joint tram network. ...
This paper discusses long-term contracts as a particular organizational form situated somewhere between full vertical integration and short-term, market-based trading in the natural gas industry. We focus on the determinants of the duration of contracts under changing technical, economic, and institutional conditions. Using 311 long-term contracts we find that duration decreases as international market ...
European postal markets are to be completely liberalized by the end of 2012 at the latest. At the same time national regulatory frameworks are being adapted to the new requirements. The extent to which the present monopoly suppliers will in future (continue to) be obliged to grant their competitors access to their network is also under discussion. In this respect the postal sector is often compared ...