Research faculty

Pär Holmberg

Associate Professor/Senior Research Fellow

Among the questions that Pär Holmberg tries to answer with his research:

What is the bidding behavior of producers in wholesale electricity markets?
How is bidding affected by market rules, regulations, information, producer's switching costs and congestion in the electricity grid?

New research

On Supply-Function Equilibria in Radial Transmission Networks Pär Holmberg and Andrew Philpott

Pär Holmberg"s research focuses on electricity markets, especially strategic bidding behaviour in electricity auctions.

Recent publications

"Price instability in multi-unit auctions", (with Edward Anderson), Journal of Economic Theory 175, 2018, pp. 318-341.

"Pro-competitive rationing in multi-unit auctions", Economic Journal 127(605), 2017, pp. F372-F395.

"Relaxing Competition through Speculation: Committing to a Negative Supply Slope", (with Bert Willems), Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 159, 2015, pp. 236-266.

"Comparison of congestion management techniques: Nodal, zonal and discriminatory pricing", (with Ewa Lazarczyk), Energy Journal, Vol. 36, 2015, pp. 145-166.

"Supply Function Equilibria: Step Functions and Continuous Representations", (with David Newbery och Daniel Ralph), Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 148, 2013, pp. 1509-1551.

"Mixed Strategies in Discriminatory Divisible-good Auctions", (with Edward Anderson och Andrew Philpott), Rand Journal of Economics, Vol. 44, 2013, pp. 1-32.

"Strategic Forward Contracting in the Wholesale Electricity Market", Energy Journal, Vol. 31, 2011, pp. 169-202.

"The Supply Function Equilibrium and Its Policy Implications for Wholesale Electricity Auctions", (with David Newbery), Utilities Policy, Vol. 18, 2010, pp. 209-226.

"Supply Function Equilibria of Pay-as-Bid Auctions", Journal of Regulatory Economics, Vol. 36, 2009, pp. 154-177.

"Numerical calculation of asymmetric supply function equilibrium with capacity constraints”, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 199, 2009, pp. 285-295.

"Unique Supply Function Equilibrium with Capacity Constraints", Energy Economics, Vol. 30, Issue 1, January 2008, pp. 148-172.

"Supply Function Equilibrium with Asymmetric Capacities and Constant Marginal Costs", Energy Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2007, pp. 55-82.

"Some inequalities related to electricity auctions”, (with P. Hästö), Applied Mathematics Letters, Vol. 19, No. 8 , August 2006, pp. 814-819.

Working papers

"Supply Function Equilibria in Networks with Transport Constraints", IFN Working Paper 945, (with Andrew Philpott).

"Electricity Markets: Designing Auctions Where Suppliers Have Uncertain Costs", IFN Working paper 1099 (with Frank Wolak).

Media

"A minor change in market trading rules could save taxpayers billions of dollars", LSE Business Review, November 29, 2017.

Presentations

"Supply Function Equilibria in Networks with Transport Constraints", Economics of Energy Markets conference in Toulouse, January 17, 2013.

Pär Holmberg

Contact

Ph : +46 8 665 4559
Mob : +46 72 511 6866
Par.Holmberg@ifn.se

Introduction

Pär Holmberg is Associate Professor in Economics and has a Ph.D. in Electric Power Engineering. Both degrees are from Uppsala University (dissertations in 2000 and 2005). He is a Senior Research Fellow of IFN and an associate of Electricity Policy Research Group, University of Cambridge. Pär used to be an Economic expert in Stockholm Administrative Court of Appeal and a research fellow at Uppsala University. He dealt with with corporate taxation at the Ministry of Finance and worked as a research engineer at ABB Corporate Research.

Subject areas

Leading Research Environment

IFN at the top

Illustration puff sid 1

The Research Institute of Industrial Economics, IFN, is a private and independent foundation devoted to pursuing highly relevant research for trade and industry.

The researchers at IFN are united in their belief that economic methods offer a powerful tool for understanding society.

The main research programs are:

economics of entrepreneurship
globalization and corporate restructuring
economics of the service sector
economics of the electricity markets
economics of institutions and culture.

Global Award

Research on entrepreneurship

The Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research is the foremost global award for research on entrepreneurship.This Prize is awarded annually with a prize sum of EUR 100,000.

IFN in cooperation with Entreprenörskapsforum and Vinnova are the principals of the award, in cooperation with the donor, Stockholms Köpmansklubb.

Professor Olav Sorenson, Yale, is the winner of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research 2018.