Search

An Economic Assessment of Soil Carbon Sequestration with Biochar in Germany

Biochar is a carbon-rich solid obtained from the heating of biomass in the (near) absence of oxygen in a process called pyrolysis. Its soil incorporation is increasingly discussed as a means to sequester carbon in soils and, thus, to help mitigate climate change. When deployed in agricultural soils in Germany, it has been found by Teichmann (2014a, b) that slowpyrolysis biochar from a wide variety ...

Spillovers between Food and Energy Prices and Structural Breaks

This paper estimates a bivariate VAR-GARCH(1,1) model to examine linkages between food and energy prices. The adopted framework is suitable to analyse both mean and volatility spillovers, and also allows for possible parameter shifts resulting from four recent events, namely: 1) the 2006 food crisis, 2) the Brent oil bubble, 3) the introduction of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) policy, and 4) the ...

What Clients Want: Choices between Lawyers' Offerings

We analyze a client's choice of contract in auctions where Dutch law firms compete for cases. The distinguishing feature is that lawyers may submit bids with any fee arrangement they prefer: an hourly rate, a fixed fee or a \mixed fee," which is a time-capped fixed fee plus an hourly rate for any additional hours should the case take longer than expected. This format of selling legal services is unusual ...

Technical Efficiency and CO2 Reduction Potentials: An Analysis of the German Electricity Generating Sector

In this paper, we analyze the technical efficiency of CO2 reduction potentials of German power and heat plants, using a non-parametric sequential Data Envelopment Analysis. We apply a metafrontier framework to evaluate plant-level efficiencies in the transformation of inputs into desirable (energy) and undesirable (CO2 emissions) outputs, taking into account different fossil fuel generation technologies. ...

Global Warming, Technological Change and Trade in Carbon Energy: Challenge or Threat?

Is it possible to combat global climate change through North-to-South technology transfer even without a global climate treaty? Or do carbon leakage and the rebound effect imply that it is possible to take advantage of technological improvements under the umbrella of a global arrangement only? For answering these questions two possible states of the world are discussed: one, where more energy efficient ...

Removing Cross-Border Capacity Bottlenecks in the European Natural Gas Market: A Proposed Merchant-Regulatory Mechanism

We propose a merchant-regulatory framework to promote investment in the European natural gas network infrastructure based on a price cap over two-part tariffs. As suggested by Vogelsang (J Regul Econ 20:141–165, 2001) and Hogan et al. (J Regul Econ38:113–143, 2010), a profit maximizing network operator facing this regulatory constraint will intertemporally rebalance the variable and fixed part of its ...

Modelling the Impact of Energy and Climate Policies

Climate change mitigation and the transformation to a global low-carbon economy is a pressing issue in policy discussions and international negotiations. The political debate is supported by the scientific community with a large number of projections, pathway simulations and scenario analyses of the global energy system and its development over the next decades. These studies are often based on numerical ...

Financial Incentives for Low Carbon Investment: Dissertation

Zur Bekämpfung des Klimawandels haben politische Entscheidungsträger auf europäischer, nationaler und regionaler Regierungsebene CO2-Reduktionsziele formuliert, die erhebliche Investitionen erfordern. Studien haben zahlreiche Marktbarrieren ermittelt, die diese Investitionen verhindern. Zur Überwindung dieser Barrieren wurden regulatorische, preis- und informationsbasierte Politikinstrumente implementiert. ...

Supplier Fixed Costs and Retail Market Monopolization

Considering a vertical structure with perfectly competitive upstream firms that deliver a homogenous good to a differentiated retail duopoly, we show that upstream fixed costs may help to monopolize the downstream market. We find that downstream prices increase in upstream firms’ fixed costs when both intra- and interbrand competition exist. Our findings contradict the common wisdom that fixed costs ...

The EU’s 2030 Climate and Energy Framework and Energy Security