Acquisitions in the Electricity Sector: Active vs. Passive Owners

Gjermund Nese ()
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Gjermund Nese: †Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration (SNF), Postal: Breiviksveie 40, N-5045 Bergen, Norway

No 16/02, Working Papers in Economics from University of Bergen, Department of Economics

Abstract: The starting point of this paper is a mixed oligopoly market consisting of n privately owned profit maximizing firms and 1 state-owned welfare maximizing firm. Motivated by the trend of mergers and acquisitions in the liberalized electricity markets, and by the debate about public or private ownership, the paper looks at two cases. In Case 1, the state-owned company acquires an ownership share in one of the private companies. In Case 2, the state-owned company is partially privatized. The paper focuses on differences in generated quantities and social surplus, depending on whether the investors behind the acquisitions are behaving as active or passive owners. One result shows that in the case of partial privatization, passive ownership provides the highest total industry generation, while active ownership induces maximum social surplus.

Keywords: General; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets; Public Enterprises; Public-Private Enterprises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 L13 L32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2002-07-12
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:bergec:2002_016

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