The market power of the incumbents means that average pool prices are set by the costs of entry. Reforms which raise entry costs will be proposed and should be resisted. Reforms to capacity payments may have little effect on prices, but could affect system security. The values of Value of Lost...

This paper is concerned with the estimation and simulation of a model of aggregate private sector non-residential investment. Its interest in investment centres on two main issues: the first is the role of the equity market in the transmission mechanism, while the second is the possibility of...

Until 1992, the electricity supply industry in Northern Ireland was controlled by a single state-owned enterprise. It was then restructured into three new generating companies and a transmission and distribution company, all of which were privatised. Since then, unit costs have fallen sharply...

This paper uses semiparametric time-series methods to model the non-linear effects of weather variations on the output growth rate of the construction sector. The study is undertaken at both the annual and quarterly frequencies; the results show that weather shocks have significant effects on...

This paper discusses a range of possible computing strategies for a European tax- benefit model, covering generic types of software and some specific brands. Ensuring flexibility, adaptability and durability are particularly important for a European tax- benefit model which must accomodate...

This paper provides some empirical evidence of asymmetric price adjustment. There have been a number of models put forward recently by Tsiddon and Ball and Mankiw in which it is optimal for the firm to respond asymmetrically to cost and demand shocks. In this paper this hypothesis is...

This paper summarises the results of the EUROMOD Preparatory Study which was established to explore the potential and feasibility of building a Europe-wide tax-benefit microsimulation model. The paper describes what is meant by microsimulation, explains the rationale for a Europe-wide model and...

This paper focuses on a possible effect of emigration on human capital formation. Emigration to a high return to skills country provides an incentive to investment in human capital. The level of human capital formation in the sending country can therefore be positively correlated with the...

This paper extends the two-period model of Mason and Swanson (1996) to investigate the optimal management of a firm faced with a long-term liability that occurs at a random date. Three issues are analysed: the optimal dividend policy; optimal expenditure on safety to delay the occurrence of any...

It is now quite common to have panels in which T, the number of time series observations on the N groups, is quite large. The usual practice is either to estimate N separate regressions and calculate the mean, which we call the Mean Group estimator, or to pool the data and assume the slope...