Controlling regional monopolies in the natural gas industry: the role of transport capacity

This paper analyzes some optimal fiscal, pricing, and capacity investment policies for controlling regional monopoly power in the natural gas industry. By letting the set of control instruments available to the social planner vary, we provide a characterization of the technological and demand conditions under which “excess” capacity in the transport network arises in response to the loss of the two other control instruments, namely, transfers and pricing. Hence, the analysis yields some insights on an economy’s incentives to invest in infrastructures for the purpose of integrating geographically isolated markets.

Investment in transport capacity and regulation of regional monopolies in natural gas commodity markets

This paper develops a model of the regulator-regulated firm relationship in a regional natural gas commodity market which can be linked to a competitive market by a pipeline. We characterize normative policies under which the regulator, in addition to setting the level of the capacity of the pipeline, regulates the price of gas, under asymmetric information on the firm’s technology, and may (or may not) operate (two-way) transfers between consumers and the firm. We then focus on capacity and investigate how its level responds to the regulator’s taking account of the firm’s incentive compatibility constraints. The analysis yields some insights on the role that transport capacity investments may play as an instrument to improve the efficiency of geographically isolated markets.

Aproximacón al cálculo del crecimiento real de Colombia: aportes metodológicos para la inclusión en las cuentas nacionales de los impactos del agotamiento del carbón y del gas natural

The integrated accounting system considers the natural resource depletion issues. We analyze the difference between this system and the traditional national accounting system, using data from the mining sector in Colombia (natural gas and coal). Results show that by including the impact of these two resources exhaustion, the traditional GDP would be overestimated; while it grew at an annual rate of 2.2% for the period 1995-2005, adjusted GDP would show a grow rate of 1.3%, reflecting costs on real country growth. These results open a debate given the current proposal of basing part of economic growth in Colombia on mining.

Análisis de estructuras óptimas de tarifas en el trasporte de gas bajo un régimen de acceso abierto.

Este documento analiza los efectos de la política de regulación y competencia en la estructura del mercado de gas. Las características de monopolio natural de su transporte, junto con las características físicas y tecnológicas del gas como un bien, permiten que esta actividad sea el objeto de interesantes procedimientos regulatorios dirigidos a incrementar el nivel de competencia en la comercialización y oferta. Nos concentramos en el régimen de acceso abierto obligatorio, y utilizamos los enfoques analíticos más relevantes, que incluyen la estructura de precios de Ramsey y la regla de precios de componentes eficientes (ECPR). Mientras presentamos estos esquemas, tratamos de introducir los principios de la fijación no lineal de precios (discriminación de precios de segundo grado) con el fin de aprovechar la heterogeneidad de los compradores en una dimensión diferente, como lo es la duración de la confianza de los contratos. Como es tradicional en los estudios relacionados con la fijación de precios de activos, demostramos que bajo condiciones específicas, el criterio ECPR lleva los mismos resultados que la regla de precios de Ramsey.