The German power market is shaped by several distinctive trends. These include market restructuring, climate policy measures, renewable energy integration, and electric vehicles. In this thesis, I conduct in-depth model-based analyses of specific economic questions related to the aforementioned developments. More precisely, I examine selected market failures and the need for economic regulation. In ...
Integrating large quantities of supply-driven renewable electricity generation remains a political and operational challenge. One of the main obstacles in Europe to installing at least 200 GWs of power from variable renewable sources is how to deal with the insufficient network capacity and the congestion that will result from new flow patterns. We model the current methodology for controlling congestion ...
With the moratorium on nuclear energy, the German federal government passed a resolution to shut down seven nuclear power plants for a period of three months. According to the calculations of DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research), sufficient electricity is being produced despite the nuclear plants' removal from the grid. Electricity prices are only likely to increase slightly. The moratorium ...
Opening the electricity market to renewable energy sources would create flexibility for the further integration of renewable energy, leading to considerably lower costs and emissions. This requires the electricity markets to be reorganized in three ways. Firstly, most trading, and therefore production decision-making, is completed at least one day prior to electricity production. But it must be possible ...
During the last years, gravity equations have leapt from the trade literature over into the literature on financial markets. Martin and Rey (2004) were the first to provide a theoretical model for cross-border asset trade, yielding a structural gravity equation that could be tested empirically. In this paper, I use a gravity model to evaluate factors that affect cross-border banking. Furthermore, I ...
This study investigates the impact of foreign bank penetration in Central and Eastern Europe on firm entry. We demonstrate that the acquisition of domestic banks by foreign investors has led to reduced firm creation, smaller average size of entrants and increased firm exit in opaque industries compared to transparent ones. At the same time, the entry of greenfield foreign banks spurred firm creation ...
It is increasingly observable that in different industries competitors jointly acquire and share customer data. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such agreements and their welfare implications. In our model the incentives of firms for data acquisition and sharing depend on the willingness of consumers to switch brands. Firms ...
For many analysts, the Chinese economy is spurred by a bubble in the housing market, probably driven by the fiscal stimulus package and massive credit expansion, with pos-sible adverse effects to the real economy. To get insights into the size of the bubble, the house price evolution is investigated by panel cointegration techniques. Evidence is based on a dataset for 35 major cities. Cointegration ...
High definition television may now be poised for a breakthrough in Germany. Unfortunately, in the area of private free-TV, broadcasters and network operators are still blocking each other. Market participants hope to leverage encryption and digital rights management as sources of long-term profits. This, however, may come at the expense of television viewers. Despite the start of regular HDTV operations ...