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Who (Else) Benefits from Electricity Deregulation? Coal Prices, Natural Gas and Price Discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan E. Hughes
  • Ian A. Lange
Abstract
The movement to deregulate major industries over the past 40 years has produced large efficiency gains. However, distributional effects have been more difficult to assess. In the electricity sector, deregulation has vastly increased information available to market participants through the formation of wholesale markets. We test whether upstream suppliers, specifically railroads that transport coal from mines to power plants, use this information to capture economic rents that would otherwise accrue to electricity generators. Using natural gas prices as a proxy for generators’ surplus, we find railroads charge higher markups when rents are larger. This effect is larger for deregulated plants, high-lighting an important distributional impact of deregulation. This also means policies that change fuel prices can have substantially different effects on downstream consumers in regulated and deregulated markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan E. Hughes & Ian A. Lange, 2018. "Who (Else) Benefits from Electricity Deregulation? Coal Prices, Natural Gas and Price Discrimination," CESifo Working Paper Series 7374, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7374
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    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7374.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    deregulation; price discrimination; electricity markets; procurement contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

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