Common wisdom about the effects of gas market liberalization in the EU claims that the fragmentation of gas supply in the downstream market can raise the price of gas imports, as the bargaining power of European firms in the upstream market would be weakened. We consider such a claim from the...

We survey the theoretical literature on privatization and efficiency by tracing its evolution from the applications of agency theory to recent contributions in the field of political economy. The first ones extend the theory of regulation with incomplete information to address privatization...

Scarce storage capacity and distortions in access to gas storage are considered causes of market foreclosure in liberalized gas markets. We consider rules currently adopted in Europe for storage rationing and propose efficient rationing mechanism based on the value of storage, when other...

In this paper we extend the model of vertical product differentiation to also consider information disparities about the extent of quality differences. Equilibrium prices turn out to depend not only on the share of informed consumers but also on uninformed consumers beliefs about quality...

Voluntary agreements with industry offer many examples of overcompliance with respect to environmental standards. Such phenomena seem to be irrational but appear less surprising considering firms' strategies are aimed to internalise environmental quality. We model the choice of the environmental...

In this paper we consider Voluntary Agreements (VAs) as an information-sharing device. In a duopoly model firms compete à la Cournot and aim to reduce environmental damages because consumers have green preferences that partially internalise negative externalities. However both firms are...