DOES ELECTRICITY RESTRUCTURING WORK? EVIDENCE FROM THE U.S. NUCLEAR ENERGY INDUSTRY.

This paper examines whether electricity restructuring improves the efficiency of U.S. nuclear power generation. Using a panel dataset consisting of the full sample of 73 investor-owned nuclear plants in the United States from 1992 to 1998, I estimate the plant-level cross-sectional and longitudinal efficiency changes associated with restructuring. Special attention is given to the potential policy endogeneity bias and different modeling strategies are presented to cope with the issue. Overall, I find a striking positive relationship between restructuring and cost reduction, and increased plant utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]