Power Politics: Electoral Cycles in German Electricity Prices

Florian Englmaier, Andreas Roider, Till Stowasser and Lisa Hinreiner

VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: We provide evidence that German public energy providers, over which municipality-level politicians hold substantial sway, systematically adjust the pricing of electric energy in response to local electoral cycles. The documented pattern is in line with both, an artificial reduction in prices before an election that needs to be countermanded by future price increases, and an artificial postponement of market-driven price increases until after the election is over.

JEL-codes: D72 D73 H44 H72 H76 K23 L33 L94 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-ene, nep-eur, nep-pol and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc17:168267

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