Long-term contracts and asset specificity revisited : an empirical analysis of producer-importer relations in the natural gas industry
Name
2006-010.pdf
Size
210.62 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9804c29e6619081d93da75e73fb966ce
Author(s)
Neumann, Anne
Hirschhausen, Christian von
Date Issued
2006
Publisher
MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
Series/Report no.
MIT-CEEPR (Series) ; 06-010WP.
Abstract
In this paper, we analyze structural changes in long-term contracts in the international trade of natural gas. Using a unique data set of 262 long-term contracts between natural gas producers and importers, we estimate the impact of different institutional, structural and technical variables on the duration of contracts. We find that contract duration decreases as the market structure of the industry develops to more competitive regimes. Our main finding is that contracts that are linked to an asset specific investment are on average four years longer than those who are not.
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