Market Power and Price Exposure: Learning from Changes in Renewable Energy Regulation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fabra, Natalia; Imelda
• 署名单位: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20210221
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 323-358
• 关键词: electricity; COMPETITION; wind; policies; IMPACT; COSTS

摘要

Given the critical role of renewable energies in current and future electricity markets, it is important to understand how they affect firms' pricing incentives. We study whether the price-depressing effect of renewables depends on their degree of market price exposure. Paying renewables with fixed prices, rather than market-based prices, is more effective at curbing market power when the dominant firms own large shares of renewables, and vice versa. Our empirical analysis leverages several short-lived changes to renewables regulation in the Spanish market and shows that switching from full-price exposure to fixed prices caused a 2-4 percent reduction in the average price-cost markup. (JEL L13, L94, L98, Q42, Q48)