As COP26 drew to a close earlier this month, almost 200 nations agreed to “phase down” coal power in the coming years. How this is done, for coal and other fossil fuels, will have implications for individuals and communities that depend on these resources for their livelihoods. The case study conducted by DIW Berlin focuses on Germany and the efforts it has undertaken to support ...
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 ...
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, ...
Coal consumption and production have sharply declined in recent years in the U.S., despite political support. Reasons are mostly unfavorable economic conditions for coal, including competition from natural gas and renewables in the power sector, as well as an aging coal-fired power plant fleet. Nevertheless, coal remains a major energy source in the North American energy markets. Supplementing EMF34 ...
State-of-the-art, open access numerical modeling of imperfectly competitive energy markets offers a sound and transparent way to address topical research questions in energy and commodity markets. We use an open access equilibrium model, the Global Gas Model (GGM), and sector-specific, politically motivated scenarios to investigate the prospects for sales of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. ...
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 ...
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 analysis of local environmental policies is essential when evaluating the consistency of national public policies vis-à-vis the compliance of global agreements to reduce climate change. This study explores one of these policies; the 2021 Mexican reform to change electric power dispatch from a marginal-cost-based to a command and control physical system prioritizing power generation from the state ...
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 ...