Nuevo chief economist

Según Kartellblog, Kai-Uwe Kühn ha sido designado Chief Economist de la Comisión Europea. Un vistazo a repec indica que ha tenido una estrecha relación con economistas españoles y que ha escrito algún paper sobre el mercado eléctrico español. El resumen de este paper – con Matilde Machado – es el siguiente

We show in this paper that the absence of major concerns about excessive pricing in the spot market is most likely a consequence of vertical integration. We show that what theoretically matters for an integrated firm is its net demand position at any point in time in the spot market. Since some firms will be net demanders they have an incentive to overproduce in generation in order to lower the spot market price paid on the net purchases from the spot market. Since electricity markets must net out, there will always be firms with net demand and net supply positions in the spot market. If they have similar degrees of market power, prices may not differ much from competitive prices. Indeed, prices may be higher or lower than in a perfectly competitive market. As a result it will not be apparent from average price cost margins in the industry whether substantial market power exists in the spot market. However, there may, nevertheless, be large efficiency losses because of the exercise of market power since net-demanders systematically overproduce and net-suppliers underproduce.

O sea, que si yo soy simultáneamente comprador y vendedor en un mercado, me interesarán precios altos o bajos según deba hacer prevalecer mis intereses como vendedor o como comprador respectivamente. Al final, todos los partícipes en un mercado semejante se integran verticalmente (para poder actuar como compradores y vendedores a la vez) so pena de que los que están integrados verticalmente les extraigan todo el beneficio si se conciertan o tienen poder de mercado individualmente considerados.