Topic Resource Markets

Optimal Discounts in Green Public Procurement

We consider a Green Public Procurement setting where the procurer provides a bid discount to environment-friendly technologies to foster their use. We assume that, before the auction, firms may switch to green technology via a publicly observable costly investment. We show that investment acts as a signaling device. This mitigates the effect of incomplete information on firms’ costs, thereby triggering ...

Mexico and U.S. Power Systems under Variations in Natural Gas Prices

This study examines the impact of natural gas prices on the power systems of Mexico and the United States. For this, we develop an integrated modeling framework by soft linking three different techno-economic bottom-up models of the power and energy systems, one partial equilibrium model of the natural gas sector, and a partial equilibrium model of the Mexican energy sector. Our results show several ...

A Real Chance for Transatlantic Partnership on Climate Policy

A Retrospective Study of State Aid Control in the German Broadband Market

We provide an evaluation of the impact of German public subsidy schemes in municipalities of Bavaria and Lower Saxony aimed at supporting the deployment of basic broadband infrastructure in rural Germany. Such subsidies are subject to state aid control by the European Commission and may only be granted if the potential market failure is addressed without distorting competition. We first analyse the ...

Quantifying the Externalities of Renewable Energy Plants Using Wellbeing Data: The Case of Biogas

Although there is strong support for renewable energy plants, they are often met with local resistance. We quantify the externalities of renewable energy plants using well-being data. We focus on the example of biogas, one of the most frequently deployed technologies besides wind and solar. To this end, we combine longitudinal household data with novel panel data on more than 13, 000 installations ...

Market Concentration in Europe: Evidence from Antitrust Markets

An increasing body of empirical evidence is documenting trends toward rising concentration, profits, and markups in many industries around the world since the 1980s. Two major criticisms of these studies is that concentration and market shares are poorly measured at the national industry level while firm level revenues are a poor indicator of product sales. We use a novel database that identifies over ...

Fossil Natural Gas Exit – A New Narrative for the European Energy Transformation towards Decarbonization

This paper discusses the potential role of fossil natural gas in the process of the energy transformation in Europe on its way to decarbonization. Mainstream conventional wisdom has it that natural gas, perhaps in combination with other gases, should maintain an important role in the energy mix, first, as a "bridge fuel", and then through a gradual transition toward "decarbonized gases". However, when ...

Environmental Kuznets Curve in France and Germany: Role of Renewable and Nonrenewable Energy

This paper aims to quantify the relation between real GDP, CO2 emissions, renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, tourism development and labor force for France and Germany as these two countries are pioneer countries pushing Paris agreement within and outside the European Union. The time spans have been used for the period of 1995–2015 according to data availability. In the presence of cross-sectional ...

Energy Transition Metals

The energy transition requires substantial amounts of metals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium. Are these metals a key bottleneck? We identify metal-specific demand shocks, estimate supply elasticities and pin down the price impact of the energy transition in a structural scenario analysis. Metal prices would reach historical peaks for an unprecedented, sustained period in a net-zero emissions ...

The Leniency Rule Revisited: Experiments on Cartel Formation with Open Communication

The experimental literature on antitrust enforcement provides robust evidence that communication plays an important role for the formation and stability of cartels. We extend these studies through a design that distinguishes between innocuous communication and communication about a cartel, sanctioning only the latter. To this aim, we introduce a participant in the role of the competition authority, ...