the renewables portfolio standard in texas an early assessment texas has rapidly emerged as one of the leading wind power markets in the united states this development can be largely traced to a well designed and carefully implemented renewables portfolio standard rps the rps is a new policy mechanism that has received increasing attention as an attractive approach to support renewable power generation though replacing existing renewable energy policies with an as of yet untested approach in the rps is risky early experience from texas suggests that an rps can effectively spur renewables development and encourage competition among renewable energy producers initial rps targets in texas were well exceeded by the end of 2001 with 915 mw of wind installed in that year alone rps compliance costs appear negligible with new wind projects reportedly contracted for well under 3 us cent k wh in part as a result of a 1 7 us cent kwh production tax credit an outstanding wind resource and an rps that is sizable enough to drive project economies of scale obliged retail suppliers have been willing to enter into long term contracts with renewable generators reducing important risks for both the developer and the retail supplier finally the country s first comprehensive renewable energy certificate program has been put into place to monitor and track rps compliance c 2002 published by elsevier science ltd less

government purchases and real interest rates this paper examines the dynamic impact of government purchases in a simple general equilibrium model with both durable and nondurable consumer goods as well as productive capital the model generates perhaps surprising results in particular increases in government purchases are shown to cause reductions in real interest rates the model thus provides a possible explanation for the observed behavior of real interest rates around wars copyright 1987 by university of chicago press

market structure and fiscal policy effectiveness in a monopolistic competition macromodel with endogenous market structure the fiscal multiplier is shown to consist of two components the first depicts the response of output to a fiscal expansion through the conventional channels that disregard the role of market imperfections the second component captures the effects of firms market power as well as the policy induced change in market structure the latter effect which has not been taken into account in existing studies is shown to be quite significant in raising the fiscal multiplier even above unity and in improving consumers welfare when the labour market is competitive

applied general equilibrium models of taxation and international trade an introduction and survey we wish to acknowledge the help of three referees and of john pencavel on several earlier drafts as well as the assistance of the modelers whose work is referred to in the paper they corrected our lack of understanding of their work and provided many other helpful comments excellent research and bibliographical assistance have been provided by debbie fretz radwan shaban and janet stotsky helpful comments have been made by charles ballard michael boskin lans bovenberg sylvester damus harvey galper glenn harrison gordon lenjosek jack mutti serena ng t n srinivasan charles stuart and eric toder the authors also acknowledgefinancial support from the national bureau of economic research the national science foundation international business machines and the social sciences and humanities research council ottawa canada

social cost of environmental quality regulations a general equilibrium analysis the use of cost benefit analysis by federal regulatory agencies has expanded greatly in scope and sophistication unfortunately agencies continue to employ private cost rather than social cost to evaluate environmental quality regulations furthermore general equilibrium impacts and intertemporal effects of regulations are typically not included in the evaluation in this paper we estimate the social cost of environmental quality regulations mandated by the clean air and clean water acts we construct an econometric general equilibrium model of the united states to demonstrate that social cost estimates diverge sharply from private cost estimates we also demonstrate that general equilibrium impacts are significant and pervasive and that intertemporal effects of the regulations heretofore ignored are significant

renewables portfolio standard a means for trade with electricity from renewable energy sources abstract this paper discusses the main support mechanisms for enhancing the deployment of renewable energies re implemented in different industrialised countries the focus is on the electricity sector where deregulation and liberalisation has led to market opening and introduction of competition in the formerly strongly regulated power market under open market conditions price regulation mechanisms in favour of renewable energies which were used by many governments to support renewables tend to be considered as being inappropriate because they lead to distortions in competition and are difficult to abolish once market participants got used to them therefore the idea of creating a demand for re instead of supporting supply is gradually spreading this paper concentrates on the renewables portfolio standard rps which is a considerably new instrument that is aimed on the demand side and has only recently entered discussion it is based on legislatively mandating a percentage share of electricity generated from renewables and proved with certificates before this new means is discussed in more detail a short overview of the existing supply side mechanism is given to point out the different approach in addition examples of some countries already having some experience with the rps are given to show the present status of implementation derived from these theoretical considerations and practical experiences the paper discusses possible impacts on market participants they depend strongly on the outline of the rps and the organisation of the electricity sector adopted as a conclusion the introduction of an rps cannot alone solve the problem of enhancing the use of re however the advantages are a higher degree of competition among generators or developers of re technology more freedom of choice concerning the options for meeting the requirement and perhaps less government expenditures also experiences with national certificate trading within the rps system could ease the way for international or at least european trading systems like the emissions trading as proposed in the kyoto protocol

government spending and private consumption this paper investigates the macroeconomic effects of anticipations about future fiscal expenditures within a simple perfect foresight general equilibrium model this paper extends s djajic 1987 by investigating an anticipated permanent increase in government spending an anticipated permanent increase may temporarily stimulate capital accumulation the questions of whether anticipated or unanticipated changes in government spending have a larger effect on capital accumulation and output is related to the questions of whether government spending is initially above or below the optimal level

international trade and environmental quality how important are the linkages this paper develops a numerical general equilibrium model of the world economy with local and global environmental externalities the model is then used to investigate the relationship between trade and the environment the authors results suggest that international trade has little impact on environmental quality furthermore the magnitude of the welfare effects of environmental policies is not significantly affected by changes in trade policies at the same time the size and distribution of the gains from trade liberalization appear to be little affected by changes in environmental policies

by force of demand explaining cyclical fluctuations of international trade and government spending abstract this paper explores the role of demand shocks as an alternative to productivity shocks in driving both domestic and international business cycles within the international real business cycle irbc framework in addition to those well documented domestic business cycle fluctuations e g the volatility and cyclicality of output consumption investment labor hours and labor productivity and international business cycle properties e g the countercyclical net export and the comovement puzzle this paper focuses on two additional stylized facts in the industrialized countries the procyclical trade openness the gdp fraction of trade volume and the countercyclical government size the gdp fraction of government spending using a parsimonious dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model we show that the model s predictions under productivity shocks are not consistent with these facts instead a demand shock driven model replicates the above facts while matching other domestic and international business cycle properties an estimated version of the model confirms the quantitatively important impacts of demand shocks

government spending and the optimal rates of consumption and capital accumulation this paper investigates the effects of a temporary change in government expendit ure on private consumption and investment the model employed is one of a closed economy populated by infinitely lived utility maximizing individuals the analysis focuses on the implications of alternative assumptions concerning the relationship between public and private c onsumption in the household s utility function a temporary increase in government expenditure is found to reduce investment if public and private goods are edgeworth complements or independent however if they are substitutes there exists the possibility of an increase in investment

output effects of government purchases the theoretical analysis focuses on the distinction between temporary and permanent movements in government purchases under plausible conditions the temporary case involves an output response that is positive less than one to one with the change in government purchases and larger than that generated by an equal sized but permanent shift in purchase the equilibrium real rate of return rise in the temporary case but changes little in the permanent one defense purchases are divided empirically into permanent and temporary components by considering the role of temporary wars no temporary shifts in nondefense purchases were isolated empirical results verify an expansionary output effect for temporary purchases that exceeds that of permanent purchases the results for some other expectational hypotheses are found to be generally supportive of the theory

government spending endogenous labor and capital accumulation following turnovsky and fisher 1995 journal of economic dynamics and control 19 747 786 we reexamine the dynamic responses of the capital stock to an unanticipated temporary increase in government consumption and infrastructure expenditures the key factors determining capital accumulation are endogenous labor the duration of policy expansion and the relationship between private decisions and the composition of public expenditure given that private decisions and public consumption are edgeworth independent if employment is variable investment increases with the duration of fiscal expansion following a temporary public infrastructure expansion there always exists the possibility of a decrease in investment before the fiscal reversion under fixed employment however a temporary public infrastructure expansion under variable employment leads to a likely increase in investment before the fiscal reversion

great recession slow recovery and muted fiscal policies in the us this paper reconsiders the role of macroeconomic shocks and policies in determining the great recession and the subsequent recovery in the us the great recession was mainly caused by a large demand shock and by the zlb on the interest rate policy in contrast with previous findings the subsequent jobless recovery is explained by the zlb effect we estimate a fraction of non ricardian households which is close to 50 and obtain comparatively large fiscal multipliers however we cannot detect a significant contribution of fiscal policies in stabilizing the us economy for instance the 2007 2009 large increase in expenditure to gdp ratios was apparently determined by the adverse non policy shocks that caused the recession

green electricity market development lessons from europe and the us this study compares the development and implementation of green electricity policies in germany the netherlands sweden and the united states a set of countries applying a range of policy instruments to encourage electricity from renewable energy sources a general tendency is identified that policies shift emphasis from r d stimulation towards dissemination and market application of renewable energy technologies we argue that in light of the long term nature of policy goals on energy security mitigation of climate change and environmental protection the applied range of policy instruments may be lacking in providing incentives for the long term development of new technologies clarifying policy objectives would allow careful selection of policy instruments including support for r d improved capacity building for policy implementation is also important

the market for tradable renewable energy credits abstract as states seek to foster the development of renewable energy resources some have introduced renewable portfolio standards rpss which require retailers of electricity to derive a specified amount of their energy supply from renewable energy resources rpss in texas arizona wisconsin and nevada allow for or require the use of tradable renewable energy credits the price of such credits is expected to reflect the cost premium for generating electricity from renewable resources relative to the market price of conventionally generated electricity using the market to trade renewable energy credits exposes buyers and sellers to risks of imperfect information poor performance and opportunism these risks can be managed through contractual arrangements and regulatory requirements pertaining to property rights in credits pricing term of the contract and assurance of performance

is the choice of renewable portfolio standards random this study investigated factors influencing the adoption or intention to adopt renewable portfolio standards rps by individual states in the united states u s theory of adoption of innovation was applied as a conceptual framework a logistic model was used to achieve the task gross state product gsp growth rate of population grp political party dominancy education level natural resources expenditure and share of coal in electricity generation were used as explanatory variables results indicated that the model predicts the dependent variable state s choice of adopting or not adopting rps 82 times correctly out of 100 results also suggested that education followed by political party dominancy gsp and grp are shown to have large impacts on the probability of rps adoption

the renewable portfolio standard design considerations and an implementation survey renewables have social and environmental bene ts compared to conventional electricity sources but are rarely competitive on a strict nancial cost basis this is because conventional sources are sometimes subsidized their full pollution costs are ignored and renewables involve newer higher cost technologies whose relative costs will fall with commercialization governments use several mechanisms to support renewables including direct nancial support grants loans indirect support r d demonstrations reform of nancial costs of conventional sources subsidy removal pollution taxes and the renewable portfolio standard rps the rps requires a minimum share of electricity from renewable energy sources its use is spreading because it maintains an incentive for renewable producers to reduce costs links the regulated market outcome to an environmental target and reduces government involvement although it is too early to evaluate fully its e ectiveness the survey for this study explored implementation issues in three european countries nine us states and australia and found the following the rps target is usually set to have environmental bene ts without causing signi cant price increases cost caps are sometimes used most jurisdictions limit eligibility to gridconnected domestic renewables the rps is usually applied to producers rather than consumers and to energy output not capacity flexibility mechanisms are desired but a challenge to implement administration in the us and australia is by government with delegation to independent utility regulators while in europe it is more the responsibility of government everywhere the rps is applied alongside other mechanisms of renewables support 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

do institutions really matter taxation in industrialized democracies new institutionalism has emerged as one of the most prominent research agendas in the field of comparative politics political economy and public policy this article examines the role of institutional variation in political economic regimes in shaping tax burdens in industrialized democracies an institutionalist model for tax policy variation is tested across the organization for economic cooperation and development oecd democracies countries are conceptualized and statistically modeled in terms of majoritarian shifting coalition and dominant coalition governments regression analysis and cluster analysis are used to statistically model crossnational tax burdens relative to the strength of labor organization and party dominance in parliament this study finds that political and economic institutions are important in explaining tax policy variation specifying the structure of political and economic institutions helps to explain the size of the state in modern capitalist democracies this article specifies and demonstrates which institutions matter and how much they matter

decarbonization of the u s electricity sector are state energy policy portfolios the solution state governments have taken the lead on u s energy and climate policy it is not yet clear however whether state energy policy portfolios can generate results in a similar magnitude or manner to their presumed carbon mitigation potential this article seeks to address this lack of policy evidence and contribute empirical insights on the carbon mitigation effects of state energy portfolios within the u s electricity sector using a dynamic long term electricity dispatch model with u s power plant utility and transmission and distribution data between 2010 and 2030 this analysis builds a series of state level policy portfolio scenarios and performs a comparative scenario analysis results reveal that state policy portfolios have modest to minimal carbon mitigation effects in the long run if surrounding states do not adopt similar portfolios as well the difference in decarbonization potential between isolated state policies and larger more coordinated policy efforts is due in large part to carbon leakage which is the export of carbon intensive fossil fuel based electricity across state lines results also confirm that a carbon price of 50 metric ton co2e can generate substantial carbon savings although both policy options an energy policy portfolio or a carbon price are effective at reducing carbon emissions in the present analysis neither is as effective alone as when the two strategies are combined

trade policy and environmental regulation in the asia pacific a simulation the asia pacific economic cooperation apec has the potential to become the world s largest free trade area encompassing both developed and developing countries at the same time environmental standards vary substantially in the region a multilateral computable general equilibrium cge model combined with environmental sub models simulates the environmental effects of trade and environmental policy changes the simulations show i even drastic reductions in trade barriers have only a small effect on pollution ii low environmental standards relative to trade partners do not necessarily result in increased pollution when trade is liberalised iii unilaterally raising environmental standards does not crowd out pollution to countries with laxer standards

market consumption and hidden consumption a test for substitutability in this paper an empirical analysis is performed on the relationship between private consumption and underground economy for the italian case it is found that private market consumption and underground or hidden consumption may be defined as complementary goods an increase in underground consumption tends to increase family market consumption and increase its marginal utility an implication of this result is that the nonmarket sector does not offer hedging opportunities to the consumer worker as stressed by busato and chiarini s 2004 artificial economy moreover wealth effects associated with a change in underground consumption are negative a statistical model confirms this structural interpretation

electricity price increase in texas what is the role of rps over the last two decades more than half of the states in the united states have adopted a renewable portfolio standard rps while vital environmental goals underlie the rationale for rps there is a rising concern that the policy may lead to increased electricity prices using the synthetic control method we conduct a comparative case study of texas an early adopter of rps and arguably a success story our statistical tests find no evidence that rps was a contributing factor in texas s electricity price increase

government debt government spending and private sector behavior a current period tax reduction financed by issuing government debt shifts the timing of tax collection from the current period to the future if the future taxes implied by government debt are not fully perceived and discounted by the private sector there will be a net wealth effect that increases private sector consumption thus reducing capital accumulation and growth if on the other hand the implied future taxes are perceived and discounted by the private sector the current period tax reduction will be used to increase private saving to pay for the future taxes and government debt will be absorbed without any real effects on the economy the effects of government spending financed by current period taxation also depend upon private sector perceptions 2 if the benefits of government spending are ignored private sector consumption will decrease in accordance with the reduction in permanent disposable income to the extent that government spending is on consumption type goods that are perceived as substitutes for privately provided consumption goods there will be a relatively greater reduction in private sector consumption to the extent that government spending is on investment type goods yielding future goods and services that are perceived as substitutes for future privately provided consumption goods there will be a relatively smaller reduction in private sector consumption the standard approach to modeling private sector consumption saving behavior involves a rather asymmetric set of assumptions as to how the private sector perceives the various elements of government fiscal policy 3 current period taxes are assumed to be fully perceived but current period government spending is implicitly assumed to be completely ignored by the private sector in considering permanent personal disposable income the private sector is assumed to be forward looking in its assessment of income and taxation the stock of government debt is nevertheless included as part of the stock of private wealth the implicit assumption associate professor of economics graduate school of business university of chicago 1101 east 58th street chicago il 60637 i thank eugene fama levis kochin michael mussa paul evans and an anonymous referee for helpful comments i am particularly grateful to daniel benjamin for contributing many hours of discussion and laura lahaye who was a research assistant and valuable adviser on earlier drafts the theoretical debate on the burden of the debt has been long standing gerald o driscoll 1977 documents ricardo s nineteenth century position robert barro 1974 reopened the debate by introducing the fundamental issue of intergenerational transfers also discussed in merton miller and charles upton 1974 the empirical side of the debate was initiated by levis kochin s 1974 attempt to test for the effects of deficits on consumption and by martin feldstein s 1974 attempt to test for the effects of social security wealth on consumption other empirical contributions include jess yawitz and laurence meyer 1976 myself 1978 and j earnest tanner 1978 1979 with respect to the effects of government deficits and debt and barro 1978 michael darby 1979 and dean leimer and selig lesnoy 1982 with respect to social security wealth see also interesting recent papers by john seater 1982 who generates detailed tests of the effects of deficits and debt on consumption charles plosser 1982 who explores the effects of government spending and debt shocks on interest rates and feldstein 1982 who attempts tests similar to some in this paper see fn 29 2martin bailey s 1962 1971 development of the effects of government spending on private consumption and aggregate economic activity is the seminal contribution paul david and john scadding 1974 extend bailey s ideas and provide some supporting empirical evidence more recently willem buiter 1977 and myself 1978 developed models based on bailey s earlier work barro 1981 has an interesting paper on related issues see also david aschauer 1982 3the standard approach incorporates fiscal policy through the concept of personal disposable income and by including the stock of government debt as part of personal wealth see for example the empirical specification of albert ando and franco modigliani 1963 which has been the basis of most empirical consumption studies since and feldstein 1974 for one of the more influential papers based on the ando modigliani specification

policies and market factors driving wind power development in the united states abstract in the united states there has been substantial recent growth in wind energy generating capacity with growth averaging 24 percent annually during the past five years about 1700 mw of wind energy capacity was installed in 2001 while another 410 mw became operational in 2002 during 2003 development activity has remained strong with an estimated 1600 mw of capacity installed with this growth an increasing number of states are experiencing investment in wind energy projects currently about half of all states host at least one wind power project this paper explores the key factors at play in the 12 states in which a substantial amount of wind energy capacity has been developed or planned some of the factors that are examined include policy drivers such as renewable portfolio standards rps federal and state financial incentives as well as market drivers such as consumer demand for green power natural gas price volatility and wholesale market rules

renewable generation across italian regions spillover effects and effectiveness of european regional fund abstract this paper investigates on the determinant factors that drive the italian regions toward a sustainable development path and evaluates the effectiveness of european regional development incentives in promoting investments in renewable energy sources res starting from the consideration that there are spillover effects between similar regions first we identify the factors that capture these similarities then we use them to evaluate their relevance in determining the success of the investments in res an econometric analysis based on the use of spatial panel specification model is implemented to support the hypotheses two important results emerge from the study the first is the identification of regional determinants of res production that are driven by the similarities between regions and that can be interpreted as guidelines in the policy choices in support of investments the second is the lack of effectiveness of the incentives in support of res results indicate that the capacity of some regional governments to direct the funds allocated by the central government or european commission towards efficient production of renewable energy is likely limited and these incentives have been undone

why is south korea s renewable energy policy failing a qualitative evaluation abstract this study explores the causes of the south korean government s failure to successfully deploy its renewable energy policy despite the south korean government s ongoing efforts since 2002 to promote the deployment of renewable energy the established deployment target has not been met and the share of renewable energy supply in total primary energy supply is poor compared to peer countries with a similar level of economic development therefore we attempt to find the causes of this policy failure using qualitative evaluation methods through the analyses conducted using focused interviews and secondary data we found that the domination of the fossil fuel and nuclear power industry s interests inconsistent policy shifts policy design that lacks sufficient support schemes poorly coordinated government activities and unsystemic and untimely monitoring and feedback have led to the failure of renewable energy deployment policies in south korea to overcome these problems we suggest that the south korean government should set more ambitious policy goals establish a new independent organization that focuses on energy policy issues use a varied policy mix and secure political support from diverse policy actors

government spending interest rates and capital accumulation in a two sector model this paper investigates dynamic impacts of a temporary fiscal expansion in a two sector growth model if the expansion falls on consumption investment commodities capital accumulation can be either promoted or reduced and the short term interest rate unambigu ously rises if the expansion falls on consumption commodities capital accumulation is crowded out and the short term interest rate declines during the period of the fiscal expan sion it is also shown that fiscal spending on the consumption commodity can move the short and long term interest rates in opposite directions jel classification e43 e62 041

cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies we analyze policies to promote renewable sources of electricity a portfolio standard rps raises electricity prices and primarily reduces gas fired generation a knee of the cost curve exists between 15 and 20 goals for 2020 in our central case and higher natural gas prices lower the cost of greater reliance on renewables a renewable energy production tax credit lowers electricity price at the expense of taxpayers which limits its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions and it is less cost effective at increasing renewables than a portfolio standard neither policy is as cost effective as a cap and trade policy for achieving carbon emission reductions

an assessment of greenhouse gas emissions weighted clean energy standards abstract this paper quantifies the relative cost savings of utilizing a greenhouse gas emissions weighted clean energy standard ces in comparison to a renewable portfolio standard rps using a bottom up electricity sector model for hawaii this paper demonstrates that a policy that gives clean energy credit to electricity technologies based on their cardinal ranking of lifecycle ghg emissions normalizing the highest emitting unit to zero credit can reduce the costs of emissions abatement by up to 90 in comparison to a typical rps a ghg emissions weighted ces provides incentive to not only pursue renewable sources of electricity but also promotes fuel switching among fossil fuels and improved generation efficiencies at fossil fired units ces is found to be particularly cost effective when projected fossil fuel prices are relatively low

governance and renewable energy investment in mena countries how does trade matter abstract the middle east and north africa mena countries have recently developed renewable energy re markets however their rate of investment in renewable energy remains small compared to other regions in the world despite their relatively abundant endowments particularly in wind and solar while the literature identifies some barriers to investment in renewable energy we assume that the investment of mena countries could be impeded by specific governance factors furthermore we consider recent literature showing that trade openness reduces the negative effects of weak governance in this paper we empirically investigate the link between governance openness and renewable energy investment in the mena region using panel data for 15 mena countries over the period 1996 2013 our results prove that high institutional quality is associated with re investment in mena countries in addition this relationship seems to be conditional on the trade regime our results are robust to several measures of renewable energy investment and governance as well as to an alternative econometric set up

debt and distortionary taxation in a simple perfect foresight model abstract we examine the real effects of a temporary substitution of debt for distortionary income taxation we find that such a policy may reduce consumption increase investment and reduce interest rates these results arise even though we examine the same model used by barro where temporary substitution of debt for lump sum taxes was shown to have no real effects we show that these anti keynesian effects on consumption are as significant as various pro keynesian effects such as finite lives hence the impact of debt is an empirical issue and ricardian neutrality appears to be a reasonable benchmark

public policy influence on renewable energy investments a panel data study across oecd countries this paper examines the impact of public policy measures on renewable energy re investments in electricity generating capacity made by institutional investors using a novel combination of datasets and a longitudinal research design we investigate the influence of different policy measures in a sample of oecd countries to suggest an effective policy mix which could tackle failures in the market for clean energy the results call for technology specific policies which take into account actual market conditions and technology maturity to improve the conditions for institutional investments advisable policy instruments include economic and fiscal incentives such as feed in tariffs fit especially for less mature technologies additionally market based instruments such as greenhouse gas ghg emission trading systems for mature technologies should be included these policy measures directly impact the risk and return structure of re projects supplementing these with regulatory measures such as codes and standards e g rps and long term strategic planning could further strengthen the context for re investments

are consumers ricardian evidence for the united states this paper derives three empirical implications of a well specified model of consumer behavior a model that nests both ricardian equivalence and an alternative non ricardian theory ricardian equivalence is then tested against this alternative the tests reveal that ricardian equivalence cannot be rejected

the effects of public spending externalities abstract we conduct a positive analysis on the effects of externalities produced by government spending to this effect we estimate using u s data an rbc model with two salient features first we allow government consumption to directly affect the marginal utility of consumption second we allow public capital to shift the productivity of private factors we provide an identification analysis that supports the strategy adopted for estimating the parameters governing these two channels on one hand private and government consumption are robustly estimated to be substitute goods because of substitutability labor supply reacts little to a government consumption shock so the estimated output multiplier is much lower than in models with separabilities on the other hand our results point towards public investment being unproductive

wind power development in the united states abstract this paper analyzes the drivers of wind power development in the united states focusing on government renewable energy incentives and access to the electricity grid the effects of wind capacity electricity transmission line coverage and grid regulation as well as state and federal subsidies from 1998 to 2007 are estimated via random effects tobit probit and ordinary least squares instrumental variables regression the results indicate that the federal production tax credit state level sales tax credit and production incentives play an important role in promoting wind power in addition higher wind power penetration levels can be achieved by bringing more parts of the electricity transmission grid under independent system operator regulation this paper concludes that state and federal government policies play a significant role in wind power development both by providing financial support and by improving physical and procedural access to the electricity grid

determinants of renewable energy growth a global sample analysis abstract we investigate factors influencing country level renewable energy growth by applying fevd and pcse estimation methods in a unique sample analysis with a longer time series 1990 2010 and a broader sample size of countries including brazil russia india china and south africa than previous studies our results reveal new insights the results suggest that certain government backed energy policies impede renewable energy investments thus implying significant failures in policy design these policies may be failing mainly because of uncertainty and the likelihood of discontinuity weak voluntary approaches are introduced in order to satisfy public demand for more sustainable investments and programmes we find that these may have negative influences on the growth of renewables as well the insight gained is consistent over the estimation methods employed

impact of public policy uncertainty on renewable energy investment wind power and the production tax credit abstract it is generally understood that the pattern of repeated expiration and short term renewal of the federal production tax credit ptc causes a boom bust cycle in wind power plant investment in the us this on off pattern is detrimental to the wind industry since ramp up and ramp down costs are high and players are deterred from making long term investments it is often assumed that the severe downturn in investment during off years implies that wind power is unviable without the ptc this assumption turns out to be unsubstantiated this paper demonstrates that it is not the absence of the ptc that causes the investment downturn during off years but rather the uncertainty over its return specifically it is the dynamic of power purchase agreement ppa negotiations in the face of ptc renewal uncertainty that drives investment volatility with contract negotiations prevalent in the renewable energy industry this finding suggests that reducing uncertainty is a crucial component of effective renewable energy policy the ptc as currently structured is not the only means existing or potential for encouraging wind power investment using data from a survey of energy professionals various policy instruments are compared in terms of their perceived stability for supporting long term investment

an intertemporal model of saving and investment this paper characterizes a market economy with infinitely long lived consumers and value maximizing firms which face costs of adjustment for capital the temporary equilibrium of this economy is similar to the short run equilibrium of standard macroeconomic models consumption is a function of wealth investment is related to the value of firms equilibrium between aggregate demand and aggregate supply is achieved by the endogenous adjustment of the sequence of current and future interest rates the dynamic behavior of output consumption and investment in this economy is the same as in an optimal growth model with adjustment costs the paper shows this equivalence and then uses it together with the equivalence of taxes to technological shocks to study the dynamic effects of fiscal policy

clean energy policies and green jobs an evaluation of green jobs in u s metropolitan areas state and local governments in the u s are actively promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency to seek economic development opportunities and create green jobs this study evaluates the employment effects of state and local clean energy and climate policies in u s metropolitan areas msas in 2006 the regression analysis shows that both state and local clean energy policies have positive and statistically significant impacts on green jobs at the metropolitan level the results from two stage probit least squares 2spls indicate that every additional state clean energy policy tool adopted is associated with 1 more green jobs in the msa on average msas with iclei membership maintain 9 3 more green jobs than msas without iclei membership ceteris paribus

costs and benefits of renewables portfolio standards in the united states lbnl xxxx costs and benefits of renewables portfolio standards in the united states by galen barbose 1 jenny heeter 2 lori bird 2 samantha weaver 1 francisco flores espino 2 and ryan wiser 1 lawrence berkeley national laboratory national renewable energy laboratory corresponding author galen barbose research scientist electricity markets and policy group environmental energy technologies division lawrence berkeley national laboratory 1 cyclotron road ms 90r4000 berkeley ca 94720 phone 510 984 3453 email glbarbose lbl gov abstract as state level renewable portfolio standards rps have driven large increases in u s renewable generation capacity states have sought to quantify the costs and benefits of these policies this paper examines recent costs and benefits of rps implementation focusing on the net or incremental cost to utilities of renewables used for compliance with rps targets during the years 2010 2012 incremental rps cost estimates are developed using a wide variety of methods and assumptions which makes comparisons among states imperfect for states with restructured electricity markets we use a standardized method to calculate incremental costs based on renewable energy certificate prices alternative compliance payment levels and compliance obligations for states with traditionally regulated electricity markets we rely on estimates produced by utilities and regulators whose methods and underlying assumptions vary widely we find that recent estimated incremental rps costs were equivalent to less than 2 of retail rates in 17 states and about 2 4 in eight states or 4 mwh to 48 mwh of renewable energy required across all states for the most recent year available in each state estimated rps costs in most states were well below the respective cost caps although a few states are currently operating at or near their cap 1 introduction twenty nine states washington dc and puerto rico have adopted renewables portfolio standards rps helping drive a roughly eight fold increase in u s renewable generation capacity over the past decade concern over the impact of these policies on electricity prices and economic growth however has spurred recent legislation in at least a dozen states to repeal reduce or freeze existing rps requirements at the same time other recent legislative proposals have sought to expand state rps policies understanding the actual historical costs and benefits of rps policies is critical to informing these legislative debates but the subject is inadequately understood this paper examines historical costs of rps implementation drawing on a recent joint report by lawrence berkeley national laboratory and the national renewable energy laboratory estimating the costs and benefits of complying with renewable portfolio standards reviewing experience to date heeter et al 2014 1 we summarize the methods state agencies and utilities have used to assess rps costs compare incremental rps compliance costs to date and evaluate the potential for increases in rps compliance costs as legislative targets rise and cost caps in some states potentially become binding the aforementioned report also synthesizes recent estimates of broader societal benefits from formal state agency evaluations including estimates of health and emission reduction benefits economic development benefits and wholesale electricity market price reductions though those findings are not included in the present paper compared to the summary of estimated rps costs the summary of rps benefits is more limited as relatively few states have undertaken detailed benefits estimates and then only for a few types of potential policy impacts in some cases the same impacts may be captured in the assessment of costs for these reasons and because methodologies and level of rigor vary widely direct comparisons between the estimates of benefits and costs are challenging 2 methods and data sources for estimating incremental rps compliance costs rps compliance costs may be defined as either gross costs or incremental costs gross costs consist of the total cost of procuring renewables to meet the rps while incremental costs also referred to as net or above market costs represent this report is publically available at http emp lbl gov publications participation by lawrence berkeley national laboratory was supported by the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy solar technologies office of the u s department of energy under lawrence berkeley national laboratory contract no de ac02 05ch1131

state renewable energy electricity policies an empirical evaluation of effectiveness over the past decade state governments have emerged as us energy policy leaders across the country states are adopting policy instruments aimed at carbon mitigation and renewable energy deployment one of the most prevalent and innovative policy instruments is a renewable portfolio standard rps which seeks to increase the share of renewable energy electrification in the electricity market this analysis evaluates the effectiveness of state energy programs with an empirical investigation of the linkage between state rps policy implementation and the percentage of renewable energy electricity generation across states we use a variant of a standard fixed effects model referred to as a fixed effects vector decomposition with state level data from 1998 to 2006 results indicate that rps implementation is not a significant predictor of the percentage of renewable energy generation out of the total generation mix yet for each additional year that a state has an rps policy they are found to increase the total amount of renewable energy generation these findings reveal a potentially significant shortcoming of rps policies political institutions natural resource endowments deregulation gross state product per capita electricity use per person electricity price and the presence of regional rps policies are also found to be significantly related to renewable energy deployment

the disparate influence of state renewable portfolio standards on renewable electricity generation capacity several papers have used panel data analyses to examine the effectiveness of u s state level renewable portfolio standards rps in promoting renewable capacity development but the findings are inconclusive estimation of average treatment effects however can mask the fact that rps policies across states are disparate and the treatment states are heterogeneous we use the synthetic control method to conduct individual case studies of the early adopter states our findings indicate that the impact of rps policies varied across states we find texas to be unique among these early adopters in that the rps policy in texas has led to increased renewable capacity jel q42 q48

government spending entry and the consumption crowding in puzzle this article documents empirically that net firm entry robustly rises after a u s government spending expansion we use this new finding to test the empirical validity of various model features that have been proposed to generate consumption crowding in after positive expenditure shocks endogenous entry models typically fail to generate the observed joint increase in consumption and entry model features that dampen the wealth effect such as rule of thumb households or complementarity between labor and consumption in preferences tend to reduce entry we show that utility or productivity enhancing public spending can reconcile the model with our documented fact and performs well empirically

what s powering wind the effect of the u s state renewable energy policies on wind capacity 1994 2012 abstractas of 2012 29 states had enacted a renewable portfolio standard rps while 37 states had at least one utility offering green power purchasing gpp to their customers the goal of both policies is to promote the adoption of clean renewable energy this article examines the influence of these polices on wind capacity across the united states from 1994 2012 a period of significant expansion of the wind generation market the analysis focuses on wind because as compared with other modern renewable energy sources wind is the only renewable energy source to make significant inroads into the u s electricity generation market my findings indicate that while there have been significant increases in commercial scale wind generation capacity neither rps nor gpp programmes had a significant influence on within state wind capacity additions

government spending and capital accumulation with endogenous time preference this paper extends s djajic 1987 to allow for an endogenous rate of time preference and reexamines djajic s experiment how the optimal rates of private consumption and capital accumulation will respond to an unanticipated temporary expansion in government spending the key factors determining the adjustment patterns are the difference between the marginal utility of private consumption and that of public spending the timing of policy reversion and the relationship between private and public consumption in household utility if private and public consumption are edgeworth independent whether investment increases with the length of fiscal expansion depends on whether the marginal utility of private consumption exceeds that of public consumption

elasticity of substitution and technical efficiency evidence from the us electricity generation abstractthe implications of national or regional energy policies for technical efficiency and environmental outcomes in electricity generation depend on fossil fuel input substitution this study u

public goods merit goods and the relation between private and government consumption in this paper we investigate the relation between public and private consumption by constructing a general government spending data set by function for 12 european countries in particular we split government consumption into two categories the 1rst category public goods includes defence public order and justice the second category merit goods includes health education and other services that could have been provided privately equations from a relatively general permanent income model are estimated by gmm the estimates are fairly robust in showing that public goods substitute while merit goods complement private consumption however the relation between merit goods and private goods turns out to be stronger than that between public goods and private goods thus in the aggregate government and private consumption are complements c