Korean Energy Economic Review ISSN:1599-7057(Print) 에너지경제연구

This paper tries to investigate incentives for anticompetitive behavior by vertical integrated firms in energy sectors and provide ways to implement effective regulation against them. Non-Competitive market structure can lead the merger incentives among energy companies in different energy sectors with the strategical purpose. As incentives for anticompetitive behaviors by vertical integrated firms, market foreclosure is more likely to occur, based on degree of upstream's market dominance in downstream sector, elasticity of product's demand and supply and Asymmetry information. This paper suggests that the effective regulation against such potential anticompetitive behaviors by integrated energy companies can be achieved through set-up the regulatory standards to assess potential anticompetitive elements like discriminating access and evasion of regulation. Also, this study suggests that it is necessary to build a single energy specialized regulation body with regulation by functions rather than by energy sources as a new regulatory framework. _x000D_