Topic Resource Markets

Broad Electricity Price Subsidies for Industry Are Not a Suitable Relief Instrument

The sharp rise in electricity prices has led to a discussion on possible subsidies for companies in the form of an industrial power tariff. The subsidies should help companies remain internationally competitive and prevent them from relocating overseas. Although German electricity prices for (industrial) firms are around the European average due to many tax exemptions, they are significantly higher ...

A Collective Blueprint, Not a Crystal Ball: Overcoming Political Stalemates: The German Stakeholder Commission on Phasing out Coal

The future of coal remains contested in many countries, hindering necessary energy transitions. Collaborative governance approaches, such as stakeholder commissions, have been proposed as potential solution to resolve such societal conflicts. In Germany, a stakeholder commission process managed to overcome the existing stalemate situation, leading to the adoption of a coal phase-out by 2038. Celebrated ...

Air Pollution Impacts and Energy Infrastructure Efficiency: Empirical Evidence with Official Micro Data

Die Klima- und Umweltkrise ist eine der größten Bedrohungen für die Menschheit, und ihre Folgen sind allumfassend. Exemplarisch für die negativen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels werden in dieser Dissertation die Auswirkungen der klimawandelbedingten Ozonbelastung auf die Gesundheit und das Wohlbefinden der Menschen untersucht, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf den unterschiedlichen Effekten von Ozon auf vulnerable ...

Policy Complementarity and the Paradox of Carbon Pricing

We present an economics framework appropriate to the exceptionally broad scope of the climate change problem. This considers that economic and social processes, particularly those involved in purposive transitions of energy technologies and systems, involve the interplay between three distinct domains of decision-making and associated actors. The first concerns small-scale and often short-term decision-making, ...

Have the Effects of Shocks to Oil Price Expectations Changed? Evidence from Heteroskedastic Proxy Vector Autoregressions

Studies of the crude oil market based on structural vector autoregressive (VAR) models typically assume a time-invariant model and transmission of shocks and possibly allow for heteroskedasticity by using robust inference procedures. We assume a heteroskedastic reduced-form VAR model with time-invariant slope coefficients and explicitly consider the possibility of time-varying shock transmission due ...

The Political Economy of Carbon Pricing: Modeling and Empirical Assessment of Carbon Pricing Policies

Substituting Clean for Dirty Energy: A Bottom-Up Analysis

We fit CES and VES production functions to data from a numerical bottom-up optimization model of electricity supply with clean and dirty inputs. This approach allows for studying high shares of clean energy not observable today and for isolating mechanisms that impact the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty energy. Central results show that (i) dirty inputs are not essential for production. ...

Not Only a Mild Winter: German Consumers Change Their Behavior to Save Natural Gas: Commentary

A Collective Blueprint, Not a Crystal Ball: How Expectations and Participation Shape Long-Term Energy Scenarios

The development of energy systems is not a technocratic process but equally shaped by societal and cultural forces. Key instruments in this process are model-based scenarios describing a future energy system. Applying the concept of fictional expectations from social economics, we show how energy scenarios are tools to channel political, economic, and academic efforts into a common direction. To impact ...

Stranded Nations? Transition Risks and Opportunities towards a Clean Economy

The transition away from a fossil-fuel powered economy towards a cleaner production system will create winners and losers in the global trade system. We compile a list of 'brown' traded products whose use is highly likely to decline if the world is to mitigate climate change, and explore which countries are most at risk of seeing their productive capabilities 'stranded'. Using methods from economic ...