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An­ette Boom

Associate Professor

Subjects
Microeconomics Economics Energy Analysis Green transition Infrastructure

Primary research areas

Industrial Economics

Theoretical modelling of all kinds of markets with less than perfect competition in order to draw conclusions how competition policy or other regulatory interventions might improve or deteriorate social welfare.

Electricity Markets

Electricity Markets need to be balanced at each point in time and are prone to externalities via the electricity networks between different producers and consumers. Therefore careful market design on the wholesale and the retail level are very important. My research focuses on how, for example, more renewable energy use to generate electricity, or more competition in electricity generation or vertical integration of generation and retail firms changes market outcomes and social welfare.

Markets with Asymmetric Information

Asymmetric information changes the conduct of firms in markets. Firms might, for example, be influenced by the observable behaviour of competing firms which might signal important information about these competing firms. Such behaviour could be building large capacities, litigating other firms that might infringe their patents, etc., in order to influence the entry decision of the firms observing this behaviour. The question is again whether conveying information via such behaviour increases or decreases social welfare.

My research helps to design and regulate markets in ways that benefits social welfare

I am an applied theoretical Industrial Economist who uses theoretical models to analyze markets with less than perfect competition. With the help of these models I try to forecast how currently relevant technological changes, new policies or regulations change market outcomes in these markets. The results help, on the one hand, actors in the market to form realistic expectations about future developments. On the other hand, they also help regulators and political decision makers to implement regulations or policies which improve the efficiency and/or the social welfare of the considered imperfect markets. 

I address questions such as: 

Does an increase in competition increase investments in generation capacities in electricity markets? 

Does vertical integration of electricity generating firms into the retail sector increase or decrease their incentive to invest in generation capacity? 

Do heterogenous retail consumers who are risk averse have an incentive to sign electricity contracts with real time pricing in situation where fixed price contracts are also available? 

Which mechanism, strategic reserves or capacity markets, is better in ensuring security of supply in electricity markets where the supply becomes more uncertain due to an increased share of electricity being produced with renewable energy? 

Can patent litigation signal the value of markets and influence the entry decisions of rivals into these markets? 

While I am working mainly with theoretical models, I try to generate testable results with these models. If possible, I am happy to cooperate with other researchers who are either interested in similar questions or who are interested in empirically testing my theoretical results. 

Outside activities

Member and later Chair, 2014–2021

Danish Bibliometric Committee for Economic Research (BFI, faggruppe 24) , which was in charge of rating academic journals in the field of Economics. Public research funding of Danish Universities at the time was partly dependent on these ratings of the journals in which their researchers published.
https://ufm.dk/forskning-og-innovation/statistik-og-analyser/bfi-afviklet