American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in US Electricity Generation
American Economic Review
vol. 112,
no. 2, February 2022
(pp. 409–41)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
This paper evaluates changes in electricity generation costs caused by the introduction of market mechanisms to determine production in the United States. I use the staggered transition to markets from 1999 to 2012 to estimate the causal impact of liberalization using a differences-in-difference design on a comprehensive hourly panel of electricity demand, generators' costs, capacities, and output. I find that markets reduce production costs by 5 percent by reallocating production: gains from trade across service areas increase by 55 percent based on a 25 percent increase in traded electricity, and costs from using uneconomical units fall 16 percent.Citation
Cicala, Steve. 2022. "Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in US Electricity Generation." American Economic Review, 112 (2): 409–41. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20172034Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- L51 Economics of Regulation
- L94 Electric Utilities
- L98 Industry Studies: Utilities and Transportation: Government Policy
- Q41 Energy: Demand and Supply; Prices
- Q48 Energy: Government Policy