Hedging risks is an important rationale for the existence of forward markets. However, Allaz and Vila (1993) show that duopolists can also have a strategic motive to sell forward, irrespective of exogenous uncertainties. Moreover, in their model the possibility of forward trading increases...

The literature on deregulated electricity markets generally assumes available capacities to be given. In contrast, this paper studies a model where firms precommit to capacity levels before competing in a uniform price auction. The analysis sheds light on recent empirical findings that firms use...

This paper reports results from an experiment studying how fines, leniency programs and reward schemes for whistleblowers affect cartel formation and prices. Antitrust without leniency reduces cartel formation, but increases cartel prices: subjects use costly fines as (altruistic) punishments....

This paper presents results from a laboratory experiment on the channels through which different law enforcement strategies deter cartel formation. With leniency policies offering immunity to the first reporting party a high fine is the main determinant of deterrence, having a strong effect even...

This paper proposes a Transit Risk Index (TRI) designed to assess the riskiness of pipeline gas imports and to study the effect of introducing new gas routes. TRI controls for gas dependency, transit route diversification, political risks of transit, pipeline rupture probability, and the balance...

It has been argued that having a contract market before the spot market enhances competition (Allaz and Vila, 1993). Taking into account the repeated nature of electricity markets, we check the robustness of the argument that the access to contract markets reduces the market power of generators....

In this paper we investigate the effects of risk preferences and attitudes towards risk on optimal antitrust enforcement policies. First, we observe that risk aversion is negatively correlated with playersÂ’ proclivity to form a cartel, and that increasing the level of fines while reducing...

Many commodities (including energy, agricultural products and metals) are sold both on spot markets and through long-term contracts which commit the parties to exchange the commodity in each of a number of spot market periods. This paper shows how the length of contracts affects the possibility...

This paper investigates why subjects in laboratory experiments on quantity precommitment games consistently choose capacities above the Cournot level - the subgame-perfect equilibrium. We argue that this puzzling regularity may be attributed to players' perceptions of their opponents' skill or...

This paper investigates why subjects in laboratory experiments on quantity precommitment games consistently choose capacities above the Cournot level – the subgame-perfect equilibrium. We argue that this puzzling regularity may be attributed to players’ perceptions of their opponents’...