Merchant Transmission Investment

We examine the performance attributes of a merchant transmission investment framework that relies on �market driven� transmission investment to provide the infrastructure to support competitive wholesale markets for electricity. Under a stringent set of assumptions, the merchant investment model appears to solve the natural monopoly problem and the associated need for regulating transmission companies traditionally associated with electric transmission networks. We expand the model to incorporate imperfection in wholesale electricity markets, lumpiness in transmission investment opportunities, stochastic attributes of transmission networks and associated property rights definition issues, the effects of the behaviour system operators and transmission owners on transmission capacity and reliability, co-ordination and bargaining considerations, forward contract, commitment and asset specificity issues. This significantly undermines the attractive properties of the merchant investment model. Relying primarily on a market driven investment framework to govern investment is likely to lead to inefficient investment decisions and undermine the performance of competitive markets

Merchant Transmission Investment

We examine the performance attributes of a merchant transmission investment framework that relies on “market driven ” transmission investment to provide the infrastructure to support competitive wholesale markets for electricity. Under a stringent set of assumptions, the merchant investment model has a remarkable set of attributes that appear to solve the natural monopoly problem and the associated need for regulating transmission companies traditionally associated with electric transmission networks. We expand the merchant model upon which these conclusions are based to incorporate imperfections in wholesale electricity markets, lumpiness in transmission investment opportunities, stochastic attributes of transmission networks and associated property rights definition issues, the effects of the behavior of system operators and transmission owners on transmission capacity and reliability, coordination and bargaining considerations, forward contract, commitment and asset specificity issues. Incorporating these more realistic attributes of transmission networks and the behavior of transmission owners and system operators significantly undermines the attractive properties of the merchant investment model. Relying primarily on a market driven investment framework to govern investment in electric transmission networks is likely to lead to inefficient investment decisions and undermine the performance of competitive markets for electricity. A significant research challenge is to design regulatory mechanisms for system operators and incumbent transmission owners and a better framework for defining transmission property rights that will stimulate efficient investments by regulated incumbent transmission owners and by merchant entrants responding to market opportunities when they are the most efficient suppliers

Long-Term Declines in Disability Among Older Men: Medical Care, Public Health, and Occupational Change

the participants of the 2000 American Economic Association Meetings. I gratefully acknowledge the support of NIH grants AG12658 and AG10120 and of the Russell Sage Foundation through their Visiting Scholar program. The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Nationa

given to the source. Entry, Exit and Patenting in the Software Industry

We examine the effects of software patents on entry and exit in 27 narrowly-defined classes of software products, using a dataset with comprehensive coverage of both mature public firms and small privately held firms between 1994 and 2004. Reflecting the complex economics underlying the relationship between patent protection, entry costs and industry structure, we find that patents have a mixture of effects on entry and exit. Controlling for firm and market characteristics, firms are less likely to enter product classes in which there are more software patents. However, all else equal, firms that hold software patents are more likely to enter these markets. The net effect on entry of increasing the number of software patents is difficult to measure precisely: estimates of the effect of an across-the-board 10 % increase in patent holdings on the number of entrants into the average market in this sample range from-5 % to +3.5%, with quite large standard errors. Evidence on exit and survival is consistent with these findings- holding patents appears to enhance the surviva