Im-perfectly competitive contract markets for electricity

by Monica Bonacina, Anna Creti and Federica Manca

Notwithstanding academic and regulatory interests as well as empirical evidence, to date the effect of contracts on competition in electricity markets is a very controversial issue. We suggest an original approach to shed light on this debate. Modeling competition by mean of conjectural variations we demonstrate that anti-competitive effects follow the upsurge of discrimination practices. Altering the time distribution of the perfect arbitrage constraint (i.e. ex-post in spite of ex-ante) we put a bridge between IO and financial models on price manipulation. Endogenizing forward demand we provide a rationale for shifting dominant attitudes to forward markets. Finally, studying sequential choices we balance quantity and price competition with Stackelberg leadership. Simulations and qualitative estimates support our findings.