Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/13035.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do pay-as-bid auctions favor collusion? Evidence from Germany's market for reserve power

Author

Listed:
  • Heim, Sven
  • Götz, Georg
Abstract
We analyze a drastic price increase in the German auction market for reserve power, which did not appear to be driven by increased costs. Studying the market structure and individual bidding strategies, we find evidence for collusive behavior in an environment with repeated auctions, pivotal suppliers and inelastic demand. The price increase can be traced back to an abuse of the auction's pay-as-bid mechanism by the two largest firms. In contrast to theoretical findings, we show that pay-as-bid auctions do not necessarily reduce incentives for strategic capacity withholding and collusive behavior, but can even increase them.

Suggested Citation

  • Heim, Sven & Götz, Georg, 2013. "Do pay-as-bid auctions favor collusion? Evidence from Germany's market for reserve power," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-035, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/74798/1/749474335.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rassenti, Stephen J & Smith, Vernon L & Wilson, Bart J, 2003. "Discriminatory Price Auctions in Electricity Markets: Low Volatility at the Expense of High Price Levels," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 109-123, March.
    2. Pär Holmberg, 2009. "Supply function equilibria of pay-as-bid auctions," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 154-177, October.
    3. Kahn, Alfred E. & Cramton, Peter C. & Porter, Robert H. & Tabors, Richard D., 2001. "Uniform Pricing or Pay-as-Bid Pricing: A Dilemma for California and Beyond," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 70-79, July.
    4. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2014. "Demand Reduction and Inefficiency in Multi-Unit Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1366-1400.
    5. Paul Klemperer, 2002. "What Really Matters in Auction Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 169-189, Winter.
    6. Federico, Giulio & Rahman, David, 2003. "Bidding in an Electricity Pay-as-Bid Auction," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 175-211, September.
    7. Cramton, Peter & Stoft, Steven, 2007. "Why We Need to Stick with Uniform-Price Auctions in Electricity Markets," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 26-37.
    8. Rothkopf, Michael H., 2002. "Control of Market Power in Electricity Auctions," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(8), pages 15-24, October.
    9. Paul L. Joskow & Edward Kohn, 2002. "A Quantitative Analysis of Pricing Behavior in California's Wholesale Electricity Market During Summer 2000," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 1-35.
    10. Paul Joskow & Edward Kahn, 2002. "A quantitative analysis of pricing behaviour in California's wholesale electricity market during summer 2000: the final word," Working Papers EP02, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    11. Just, Sebastian & Weber, Christoph, 2008. "Pricing of reserves: Valuing system reserve capacity against spot prices in electricity markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 3198-3221, November.
    12. Richard Schmalensee & Bennett W. Golub, 1984. "Estimating Effective Concentration in Deregulated Wholesale Electricity Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 12-26, Spring.
    13. Natalia Fabra, 2003. "Tacit Collusion in Repeated Auctions: Uniform Versus Discriminatory," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 271-293, September.
    14. Catherine D. Wolfram, 1998. "Strategic Bidding in a Multiunit Auction: An Empirical Analysis of Bids to Supply Electricity in England and Wales," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(4), pages 703-725, Winter.
    15. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock, 2007. "Tacit collusion and capacity withholding in repeated uniform price auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 1044-1069, December.
    16. Peter Cramton, 2003. "Competitive Bidding Behavior in Uniform-Price Auction Markets," Papers of Peter Cramton 03ferc1, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2003.
    17. Green, Richard J & Joanne Evans, 2003. "Why did British electricity prices fall after 1998?," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 92, Royal Economic Society.
    18. Hurlbut, David & Rogas, Keith & Oren, Shmuel, 2004. "Protecting the Market from "Hockey Stick" Pricing: How the Public Utility Commission of Texas is Dealing with Potential Price Gouging," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 26-33, April.
    19. Richard Green, 2001. "Markets for Electricity in Europe," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(3), pages 329-345.
    20. Sebastian Just, 2011. "Appropriate contract durations in the German markets for on-line reserve capacity," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 194-220, April.
    21. Frank A. Wolak & Robert H. Patrick, 2001. "The Impact of Market Rules and Market Structure on the Price Determination Process in the England and Wales Electricity Market," NBER Working Papers 8248, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Severin Borenstein & James Bushnell & Christopher R. Knittel, 1999. "Market Power in Electricity Markets: Beyond Concentration Measures," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 65-88.
    23. Müller, Gernot & Rammerstorfer, Margarethe, 2008. "A theoretical analysis of procurement auctions for tertiary control in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2620-2627, July.
    24. Cabral, Luis, 2002. "The California energy crisis," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 335-339, August.
    25. Swider, Derk J. & Weber, Christoph, 2007. "Bidding under price uncertainty in multi-unit pay-as-bid procurement auctions for power systems reserve," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(3), pages 1297-1308, September.
    26. Severin Borenstein & James B. Bushnell & Frank A. Wolak, 2002. "Measuring Market Inefficiencies in California's Restructured Wholesale Electricity Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1376-1405, December.
    27. Natalia Fabra & Juan Toro, 2003. "The Fall in British Electricity Prices: Market Rules, Market Structure, or Both?," Industrial Organization 0309001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Chen & Shao, Zhen & Jiao, Jianling & Yang, Shanlin, 2024. "How connected is withholding capacity to electricity, fossil fuel and carbon markets? Perspectives from a high renewable energy consumption economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    2. Merten, Michael & Olk, Christopher & Schoeneberger, Ilka & Sauer, Dirk Uwe, 2020. "Bidding strategy for battery storage systems in the secondary control reserve market," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    3. Backer, Martijn & Keles, Dogan & Kraft, Emil, 2023. "The economic impacts of integrating European balancing markets: The case of the newly installed aFRR energy market-coupling platform PICASSO," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    4. Poplavskaya, Ksenia & de Vries, Laurens, 2019. "Distributed energy resources and the organized balancing market: A symbiosis yet? Case of three European balancing markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 264-276.
    5. Fabian Ocker & Karl‐Martin Ehrhart & Marion Ott, 2018. "Bidding strategies in Austrian and German balancing power auctions," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(6), November.
    6. Poplavskaya, Ksenia & Lago, Jesus & de Vries, Laurens, 2020. "Effect of market design on strategic bidding behavior: Model-based analysis of European electricity balancing markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    7. Bergler, Julian & Heim, Sven & Hüschelrath, Kai, 2017. "Strategic capacity withholding through failures in the German-Austrian electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 210-221.
    8. Viehmann, Johannes & Lorenczik, Stefan & Malischek, Raimund, 2018. "Multi-unit multiple bid auctions in balancing markets: an agent-based Q-learning approach," EWI Working Papers 2018-3, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    9. Natalia Wasilewska & Mirosław Wasilewski & Serhiy Zabolotnyy & Dmytro Osiichuk, 2022. "The Impact of M&As on the Competitive Positioning of European Energy Firms and Market Power Concentration on EU National Energy Markets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-19, November.
    10. Esmaeili Aliabadi, Danial & Chan, Katrina, 2022. "The emerging threat of artificial intelligence on competition in liberalized electricity markets: A deep Q-network approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    11. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for Collusion in Wholesale Electricity Markets: A Review of the Literature," Working Papers 2023-7, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    12. Casimir Lorenz & Clemens Gerbaulet, 2017. "Wind Providing Balancing Reserves: An Application to the German Electricity System of 2025," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1655, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Schillinger, Moritz, 2019. "Balancing Market Design and Opportunity Cost - The Swiss Case," Working papers 2019/14, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    14. Schillinger, Moritz, 2020. "Balancing-market design and opportunity cost: The Swiss case," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Knaut, Andreas & Obermüller, Frank & Weiser, Florian, 2017. "Tender Frequency and Market Concentration in Balancing Power Markets," EWI Working Papers 2017-4, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    16. Dongwei Zhao & Audun Botterud & Marija Ilic, 2023. "Uniform Pricing vs Pay as Bid in 100%-Renewables Electricity Markets: A Game-theoretical Analysis," Papers 2305.12309, arXiv.org.
    17. Schillinger, Moritz & Weigt, Hannes, 2019. "Bidding into balancing markets in a hydro-dominated electricity system," Working papers 2019/13, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    18. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for collusion in wholesale electricity markets: A literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bergler, Julian & Heim, Sven & Hüschelrath, Kai, 2017. "Strategic capacity withholding through failures in the German-Austrian electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 210-221.
    2. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David, 2010. "The supply function equilibrium and its policy implications for wholesale electricity auctions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 209-226, December.
    3. Natalia Fabra & Nils‐Henrik Fehr & David Harbord, 2006. "Designing electricity auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 23-46, March.
    4. Pär Holmberg, 2009. "Supply function equilibria of pay-as-bid auctions," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 154-177, October.
    5. Twomey, P. & Green, R. & Neuhoff, K. & Newbery, D., 2005. "A Review of the Monitoring of Market Power The Possible Roles of TSOs in Monitoring for Market Power Issues in Congested Transmission Systems," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0504, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. Crawford, Gregory S. & Crespo, Joseph & Tauchen, Helen, 2007. "Bidding asymmetries in multi-unit auctions: Implications of bid function equilibria in the British spot market for electricity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1233-1268, December.
    7. Paul Klemperer, 2007. "Bidding Markets," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-47.
    8. T. S. Genc, 2009. "Discriminatory Versus Uniform-Price Electricity Auctions with Supply Function Equilibrium," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 9-31, January.
    9. Holmberg, Pär, 2005. "Comparing Supply Function Equilibria of Pay-as-Bid and Uniform-Price Auctions," Working Paper Series 2005:17, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    10. Dormady, Noah C., 2014. "Carbon auctions, energy markets & market power: An experimental analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 468-482.
    11. Fabra, Natalia & Toro, Juan, 2005. "Price wars and collusion in the Spanish electricity market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 155-181, April.
    12. Richard Benjamin, 2016. "Tacit Collusion in Electricity Markets with Uncertain Demand," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 69-93, February.
    13. Richard Benjamin, 2016. "Tacit Collusion in Electricity Markets with Uncertain Demand," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 69-93, February.
    14. Müller, Gernot & Rammerstorfer, Margarethe, 2008. "A theoretical analysis of procurement auctions for tertiary control in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2620-2627, July.
    15. Sapio, Alessandro & Spagnolo, Nicola, 2016. "Price regimes in an energy island: Tacit collusion vs. cost and network explanations," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 157-172.
    16. Dejan Trifunović & Bojan Ristić, 2013. "Multi-Unit Auctions In The Procurement Of Electricity," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 58(197), pages 47-78, April – J.
    17. Sherzod N. Tashpulatov, 2018. "The Impact of Behavioral and Structural Remedies on Electricity Prices: The Case of the England and Wales Electricity Market," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-24, December.
    18. Lízal, Lubomír M. & Tashpulatov, Sherzod N., 2014. "Do producers apply a capacity cutting strategy to increase prices? The case of the England and Wales electricity market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 114-124.
    19. Tashpulatov, Sherzod N., 2015. "Analysis of electricity industry liberalization in Great Britain: How did the bidding behavior of electricity producers change?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 24-34.
    20. Erin T. Mansur, 2007. "Do Oligopolists Pollute Less? Evidence From A Restructured Electricity Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 661-689, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auctions; Collusion; Market Power; Energy Markets; Reserve Power; Balancing Power;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.