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First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor Monika Schnitzer, not only for her continuous advice and support over the last four years, but also for encouraging me to take up this academic endeavor. I also would like to thank Tobias Kretschmer who agreed to serve as the second supervisor to my dissertation and Fabian Herweg for completing the doctoral committee. I am grateful to David Newbery and the University of Cambridge for hosting me as a Vis-iting Researcher at the Electricity Policy Research Group in the first half of 2011. This stay and David’s vast knowledge on energy economics have benefitted my research and my understanding of current energy policy immensely. I am indebted to Gregor Zöttl for acting as a co-author for the first chapter in this thesis. His rigorous technical approach has taught me a lot about modeling in state-of-the-art energy economics. Moreover, I am thankful to Michal Masika for co-authoring the third paper of this dissertation. His patience and perseverance were a great motivator. Furthermore, I would like to thank Georg Gebhardt, Ilja Rudyk and Martin Watzinger for their comments and ideas on my work