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From Boom to Bust? A Critical Look at US Shale Gas Projections

U.S. shale gas production is generally expected to continue its fast rise of the last years. However, a cautious evaluation is needed. Shale gas resources are potentially overestimated and it is uncertain to what extent they can be economically produced. The adverse environmental effects of ever more wells being drilled may lead to a fall in public acceptance and the strengthening of U.S. regulation. ...

Marktstrukturen in der Trinkwasserversorgung

Mit mehr als 6.000 Unternehmen kann die Trinkwasserversorgung Deutschlands im internationalen Vergleich als höchst fragmentiert angesehen werden. Während die Trinkwasserversorgung in zahlreichen Ländern durch eine ähnliche Fragmentierung gekennzeichnet ist, gibt es aber auch Beispiele höchst konsolidierter Versorgungsstrukturen: so gibt es in England und Wales lediglich 22 Trinkwasserversorgungsunternehmen ...

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

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 ...

Strategic Behaviour in Energy Markets: Advances in Complementarity and Multi-Stage Equilibrium Modelling ; Dissertation

Diese Dissertation untersucht mehrere energiewirtschaftliche Fragestellungen, in denen Marktmacht eine besondere Rolle spielt; mittels spieltheoretischer Ansätze werden die strategischen Interaktionen mathematisch formuliert und anhand numerischer Methoden Gleichgewichte der Spiele identifiziert. Der Beitrag zum wissenschaftlichen Diskurs rund um den Themenbereich Marktmacht in der Energiewirtschaft ...

Climate Protection through Biochar in German Agriculture: Potentials and Costs

In recent years, there has been much discussion about biochar - a carbonaceous product made of biomass - as a promising technique for mitigating climate change. In particular, this method has the potential to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the long term by incorporating biochar into the soil while enhancing soil fertility at the same time. A research project conducted by DIW Berlin calculated ...

The Welfare Impact of Parallel Imports: A Structural Approach Applied to the German Market for Oral Anti-Diabetics

We investigate the welfare impact of parallel imports using a large panel data set containing monthly information on sales, ex-factory prices, and further product characteristics for all 700 anti-diabetic drugs sold in Germany between 2004 and 2010. We estimate a two-stage nested logit model of demand and, based on an oligopolistic model of multiproduct firms, we then recover the marginal costs and ...

Why Do Emitters Trade Carbon Permits? Firm-Level Evidence from the European Emission Trading Scheme

The creation of the EU's Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has turned the right to emit CO2 into a positively priced intermediate good for the affected firms. Firms thus face the decision whether to source compliance with the EU ETS within their boundaries or to acquire it through the permit trade. However, a combination of internal abatement, free permit allocation and flexibility to shift the use ...

The EU ETS: Eight Years and Counting

This paper provides an introduction to the EU's Emissions Trading System. As such it provides a discussion of the historical and legal context in which the EU ETS developed and now operates, a presentation of the key performance indicators for the first eight years through the end of the second phase in 2012, and some concluding observations on the system's future. The paper is purposively descriptive ...

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. ...