Restructuring European Electricity Markets — A Panel Data Analysis

This paper looks at the restructuring of European electricity markets that has been taking place since the 1990s. This liberalisation process, driven largely by EU legislation aiming to create a single market for electricity, has led to significant changes in how electricity markets in member states operate. In this paper I estimate the impact of the restructuring process on electricity prices for industrial consumers. Much of the literature to date estimating the impacts of electricity market restructuring fails to take into account the potential endogeneity of the reform process. By using dynamic panel-data techniques, I aim to overcome this shortcoming. I find that once the potential endogeneity of reforms is accounted for, restructuring has, as of yet, had no statistically significant impact on electricity prices. This research highlights the importance of accounting for dynamics and endogeneity before drawing inferences about the results of EU electricity-market reform.