Misreading liberalisation and privatisation: The case of the US energy utilities in Europe

Laura Haar and Trefor Jones

Energy Policy, 2008, vol. 36, issue 7, 2610-2619

Abstract: In response to energy market liberalisation and privatisation initiatives promoted by the EU and other European states in the 1990s, a large number of US energy utilities expanded their activities in Europe, mainly through acquisitions. The size of their investment was, a decade later, matched by the ensuing scale of their retreat, wealth destruction and often forced exit. Combining interviews, industry studies, published financial data and company reports, this article examines critically their strategy and, in light of widespread failures, seeks to answer the question of what went wrong. It is argued that mistakes might have been avoided through greater appreciation of how market liberalisation evolves given changing government priorities and general sovereign risk.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(08)00141-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:36:y:2008:i:7:p:2610-2619

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().