Storage and Competition in gas market

n order to analyze competition in gas markets, an intermediate activity of storage is included in a classical model of vertical relations. In that case, firms can inject or withdraw strategically natural gas resource. The access to the storage facility can deteriore the welfare since it incites the vertically integrated firms (production and distribution) to withdraw strategically. This incentive is reduced by vertical integration between storage and distribution. Thus it improves the social welfare.

Optimal Nonlinear Pricing, Bundling Commodities and Contingent Services

In this paper, we propose to analyze optimal nonlinear pricing when a firm offers in a bundle a commodity and a contingent service. The paper studies a mechanism design where all private information can be captured in a single scalar variable in a monopoly context. We show that to propose the package for commodity and service is less costly for the consumer, the firm has lower consumers rent than the situation where it sells their good and contingent service under an independent pricing strategy. In fact, the possibility to use price discrimination via the supply of package is dominated by the fact that it is costly for the consumer to sign two contracts. Bundling energy and a contingent service is a profitable strategy for a energetician monopoly practising optimal nonlinear tariff. We show that the rates of the energy and the contingent service depend to the optional character of the contingent service and depend to the degree of complementarity between commodities and services.Bundling, Nonlinear pricing, Energy market

Internet access and investment incentives for broadband service providers

This paper studies a model of the Internet broadband market as a platform in order to show how different pricing schemes from the so-called net neutrality may increased economic efficiency by allowing more investment of access providers and enhancing consumers surplus and social welfare. --Network neutrality,Flat rates,Termination fees

Mechanisms of Funding for Universal Service Obligations: the Electricity Case

The transition towards a more competitive regime in network industries (and specially in electricity sector) raises the relevant question of funding for the Universal Service Obligations (USOs). Our paper focuses on two ways of funding for universal service and equal treatment obligations (Ubiquity and Non Discrimination constraints): the funding through access charge (CS regime) or taxation (T regime). Using a network model including competition between an historical monopoly (in charge for the USOs) and an entrant, we obtain some results concerning gains and losses of social welfare due to those mechanisms. We show that most of the time it is socially better to let the historical monopoly be active whatever the type of funding for USOs applying, and whatever profitability of the firms is. However, when the entrant is active, we can highlight that the introduction of the T regime (compared to the CS one) implies either welfare deterioration or an entry prevention strategy by the historical Þrm. Therefore, the T regime could not be an argument for the regulator to promote vertical separation of the historical firm (according to the European community line).ELECTRICITY SECTOR; NETWORKS; REGULATION; UNIVERSAL SERVICE

Internet access and investment incentives for broadband service providers

This paper studies a model of the Internet broadband market as a platform in order to show how di¤erent pricing schemes from the so-called "net neutrality " can increase economic e¢ ciency by allowing more investment of access providers and enhancing consumers surplus and social welfare. We show that departing from the "net neutrality", where at rates are used, introducing termination fees can increase incentives to invest for the ISP and enhance social surplus. Keywords : Network neutrality, Flat rates, Termination fees.

Funding for Universal Service Obligations in Electricity Sector : the case of green power development

The process of deregulation in network industries, in particular in the electric sector, raises the problem of Þnancing the Universal Service Obligations (USO) corresponding to the production, transport and distribution operations. In this paper, we study three ways of funding for an USO of production, especially the "green" electricity development: the Þnancing with cross-subsidies, the implementation of a fund (financing by a tax) and finally a voluntary funding system by direct subscriptions of consumers. We notably show that this last one Pareto dominates mostly, from a welfare point of view, the other scenarios.ELECTRICITY ; ENVIRONMENT ; REGULATION ; NETWORK ; UNIVERSAL SERVICE,

Collusion Sustainability with Multimarket Contacts: Revisiting HHI Tests

Our paper focuses on the relationship between market concentration and collusion sustainability in a framework of multimarket contacts. We consider two independent and symmetric markets in which a subset of firms are active in both markets. When firms are able to transfer market power from one market to another, firms have strong incentives to collude even in a highly competitive market. This result is relevant for competition policy since assessing market concentration using HHI index could be misleading in some situations.

R&D et innovations technologiques au sein d'un marché monopolistique d'une ressource non renouvelable

Ce document présente une analyse théorique du comportement de R&D et d’innovation technologique d’une firme minière en situation de monopole. Deux types d’innovations de processus d’extraction y sont proposés. D’une part la R&D débouchera sur des innovations réductrices de coût, c’est-à-dire qui permettent de compresser le coût unitaire par mètre foré. D’autre part, l’innovation impliquera « l’accessibilité » à des réserves jusqu’alors probables ainsi qu’une hausse du coût unitaire d’exploitation. Ces deux comportements d’innovations produisent des effets opposés en matière d’épuisement de la ressource, mais leur impact sur le prix d’offre est voisin. Enfin le choix technologique du monopole minier (entre les deux modalités proposées) n’est pas neutre du point de vue du bien-être collectif, les innovations « d’accessibilité » pouvant être, sous certaines conditions, considérées comme meilleures.RESSOURCES EPUISABLES ; R&D ; THEORIE DU MONOPOLE

Reforming the Postal Universal Service

peer reviewedThe postal sector has undergone dramatic changes over the recent years under the double effect of ongoing liberalization and increased competition with alternative communication channels (e-substitution). As a result, the mail volume handled by the historical operator has declined sharply while the latter's ability to match the same standard of universal service may be under threat. Thus, a reform of the postal universal service is on the agenda. This paper examines possible reforming options ranging from keeping universal service within the postal sector to redefining universal service as spanning postal and electronic technologies

Mining and Incentive Concession Contracts

This paper studies the design of a mining concession contract as a multi-period autoselection problem where production is the depletion of a non renewable resource. As compared to symmetric information, we show that overproduction (resp. underproduction) is optimal in the initial phase (resp. terminal phase ) of the resource extraction program. Also, asymmetric information lengthens the contract duration but reduces the scarcity rent. Finally, when there are several agents competing for contract bid, we show that optimal auctioning could be used to award the concession, assigning the lowest cost agent to carry out the extraction.ADVERSE SELECTION; EXHAUSTIBILITY; OVERPRODUCTION