RETAIL - The residential Nordic Electricity Markets - How do they work and why?

All Nordic countries have deregulated their electricity markets, and Nordic end-users (retail customers) are free to choose from whom they want to buy electricity. Although Nordic retailers purchase electricity in the same Nordic wholesale market, retail markets currently remain national with rules, prices, margins, customer mobility and contract variety & choices varying widely across the countries. These four national retail markets work fairly differently and there are numerous candidates of explana tion for the differences: * Historical setting and starting situation for the actual retail market * National regulation and rules * Market structure - concentration - degree of vertical integration * Customer characteristics such as: magnitude of electri city consumption - budget share of electricity, risk attitudes, loyalty, knowledge and awareness. * Corporate environment and strategy: the methods and approaches which retailers use concerning pricing, contracts, customer and elasticity management. Our aim is to identify and explain the nature of and reasons for the differences in the above mentioned influencers, the consequences of them for market efficiency, and to thereby propose ways by which regulators and policy makers may change rules and/or mar ket structures to increase retail market efficiency in Norway and the Nordic region. As explained below, we will undertake empirical/statistical research in order to quantify explanations and market behaviour.