Energy Economics Industrial Organization Regulation
David Brown holds a Canada Research Chair in Energy Economics & Policy at the University of Alberta. His research lies at the intersection of energy economics, industrial organization, and regulatory policy. In particular, David's research analyzes the effects of regulatory policies on the performance of electricity markets. This includes research that measures market power execution in wholesale power markets; analyzes the impacts of mergers and market structure changes; designing regulations to motivate utilities to invest in cost-effective distributed energy resources; and analyzing the distributional impacts of emerging technologies. The objective of his work is to gain insights into the impact of imperfect competition on market outcomes and to design regulatory policies to improve the operation of electricity markets.
Primary Fields: Energy Economics, Industrial Organization, and Regulation
Secondary Fields: Applied Econometrics and Environmental Economics
Peer-Reviewed Publications:
Policy-Focused Publications:
Working Papers:
"Procurement Auctions for Regulated Retail Service Contracts in Restructured Electricity Markets" (with Andrew Eckert and Derek Olmstead) (Under Review)
"Market Structure, Risk Preferences, and Forward Contracting Incentives" (with David Sappington) (Under Review)
"Incentive Regulation and Forward Contracting in the Electricity Sector" (with David Sappington (Under Review)
"Evaluating the Impact of Divestitures on Competition: Evidence from Alberta's Wholesale Electricity Market" (with Andrew Eckert and Blake Shaffer) (Under Review)
Permanent Working Papers:
"Self-Sabotage in the Procurement of Distributed Energy Resources" (with David Sappington)
Work in Progress:
"Strategic Interaction of Wholesale Market Power and Ancillary Service Markets" (with Andrew Eckert and Douglas Silveira)
"The Value of Electricity Reliability: Evidence from Battery Adoption" (with Lucija Muehlenbachs)
"Central Control Versus Pricing: A Demand Response Experiment" (with Blake Shaffer, Megan Bailey, Frank Wolak)
"Electricity: Markets, Regulation, and Competition Policy"
Technical Appendices:
"Market Structure, Risk Preferences, and Forward Contracting Incentives" (with David Sappington)
"The Impacts of Load Following Contracts" (with David Sappington).
"Pricing Patterns in Wholesale Electricity Markets: Unilateral Market Power or Coordinated Behaviour?" (with Andrew Eckert).
"Analyzing Firm Behaviour in Restructured Electricity Markets: Empirical Challenges with a Residual Demand Analysis" (with Andrew Eckert).
"Vertical Integration and Capacity Investment in the Electricity Sector" (with David Sappington).
"Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets with Renewable Generation: The Role of Renewable Compensation Policies" (with Andrew Eckert).
"On the Benefits of Behind-the-Meter Rooftop Solar and Energy Storage: The Importance of Retail Rate Design" (with Richard Boampong).
"Information and Transparency in Wholesale Electricity Markets: Evidence from Alberta" (with Andrew Eckert and James Lin)
"Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets with Renewable Generation: The Role of Renewable Compensation Policies" (with Andrew Eckert)
"Employing Simple Cost-Sharing Policies to Motivate the Efficient Implementation of Distributed Energy Resources" (with David Sappington)
"Self-Sabotage in the Procurement of Distributed Energy Resources" (with David Sappington)
"Optimal Procurement of Distributed Energy Resources" (with David Sappington)
"Mergers with Endogenous Forward Contracting" (with Andrew Eckert)
"On the Role of Maximum Demand Charges in the Presence of Distributed Generation Resources'" (with David Sappington)
"Measuring Market Power and the Efficiency of Alberta's Restructured Electricity Market: An Energy-Only Market Design" (with Derek Olmstead)
"Designing Compensation for Distributed Solar Generation: Are Common Net Metering Policies Optimal?" (with David Sappington)
"Capacity Payment Mechanisms and Investment Incentives in Restructured Electricity Markets"
"Promoting Efficient Distributed Generation of Electricity" (with David Sappington)
"On the Optimal Design of Demand Response Policies" (with David Sappington)
Analysis of structure and equilibrium of games. Applications to economic problems such as bargaining, auctions and collusion. Prerequisites: ECON 109, ECON 384 and 299 or equivalent.
Winter Term 2023Economic foundations of regulation. This course covers problems of natural monopoly, incentive regulation, deregulation, environmental regulation, insurance and financial regulation, universal service obligation, network access pricing, and product quality regulation.
Winter Term 2023