rent controls and rental housing quality a note on the effects of new york city s old controls rent controls are used in many cities throughout the united states and many other countries there is a lengthy literature on the conceptual effects of rent controls this is not surprising given the size of housing in the u s asset base and the political importance attached to homeownership and quality housing it is surprising how little evidence there is on many of the supposed effects of rent controls the evidence on these impacts is relatively slim for a variety of reasons first the data needed to document some of the predicted impacts are not good for example it is difficult to measure effective maintenance inputs and it is costly to obtain any such data on a wide variety of buildings convincing ceteris paribus experiments are difficult to perform because there typically are many other factors for which it is hard to control additionally the negative theoretical implications appear to be so clear that many economists may not have felt much need to quantify the extent of the damage nevertheless there is some evidence on the influences of rent controls from studies estimating the price elasticity of the supply of structures economists have estimated the likely effect of rent controls on the supply of new structures in a city rydell et al lo and fallis and smith 3 have

regulated prices rent seeking and consumer surplus price controls lead to misallocation of goods and encourage rent seeking the misallocation effect alone ensures that a price control always reduces consumer surplus in an otherwise competitive market with convex demand if supply is more elastic than demand or with log convex demand e g constant elasticity even if supply is inelastic the same results apply whether rationed goods are allocated by costless lottery or whether costly rent seeking and or partial decontrol mitigates the inefficiency our analysis exploits the observation that in any market consumer surplus equals the area between the demand curve and the industry marginal revenue curve

out of control what can we learn from the end of massachusetts rent control abstract this paper uses the sudden end of rent control in massachusetts in 1995 to estimate the effects of rent control i examine boston msa data from the american housing survey years 1985 1998 to determine how rent control affected the quantity price and quality of rental housing my results suggest rent control had little effect on the construction of new housing but did encourage owners to shift units away from rental status and reduced rents substantially rent control also led to deterioration in the quality of rental units but these effects appear to have been concentrated in smaller items of physical damage i also examine specifications that allow rent control to affect rent levels both directly through controlled status and indirectly through spillover effects from nearby rent controlled units these estimates imply that rent control may have small effects on the price of the non controlled rental housing stock

assessing the combined effect of the diffusion of solar rooftop generation energy conservation and efficient appliances in households abstract there is a growing worldwide concern regarding emissions of energy related greenhouse gases ghgs policy technology and human awareness provide opportunities for offsetting these effects through energy conservation efficient appliances and solar generation in households as these have been the subject of increasing attention across the world in recent years solar rooftop generation in particular could deliver significant efficiency improvements and reductions of co2 emissions through its diffusion which also avoids losses in electricity transmission and distribution systems energy efficiency contributes to the achievement of a sustainable future because it reduces the energy infrastructure needs increases competitiveness and improves consumer welfare conservation would also reduce co2 emissions in households the purpose of this paper is to assess the combined effect of the diffusion of solar rooftop generation energy efficiency and electricity conservation in the residential sector in colombia simulation results for different policy scenarios indicate that rooftop generation energy efficiency and conservation can together lead under certain conditions to important reductions in both electricity prices and emissions

incorporating technology buying behaviour into uk based long term domestic stock energy models to provide improved policy analysis the uk has a target for an 80 reduction in co2 emissions by 2050 from a 1990 base domestic energy use accounts for around 30 of total emissions this paper presents a comprehensive review of existing models and modelling techniques and indicates how they might be improved by considering individual buying behaviour macro top down and micro bottom up models have been reviewed and analysed it is found that bottom up models can project technology diffusion due to their higher resolution the weakness of existing bottom up models at capturing individual green technology buying behaviour has been identified consequently markov chains neural networks and agent based modelling are proposed as possible methods to incorporate buying behaviour within a domestic energy forecast model among the three methods agent based models are found to be the most promising although a successful agent approach requires large amounts of input data a prototype agent based model has been developed and tested which demonstrates the feasibility of an agent approach this model shows that an agent based approach is promising as a means to predict the effectiveness of various policy measures

scaling up local energy infrastructure an agent based model of the emergence of district heating networks abstract the potential contribution of local energy infrastructure such as heat networks to the transition to a low carbon economy is increasingly recognised in international national and municipal policy creating the policy environment to foster the scaling up of local energy infrastructure is however still challenging despite national policy action and local authority interest the growth of heat networks in uk cities remains slow techno economic energy system models commonly used to inform policy are not designed to address institutional and governance barriers we present an agent based model of heat network development in uk cities in which policy interventions aimed at the institutional and governance barriers faced by diverse actors can be explored three types of project instigators are included municipal commercial and community which have distinct decision heuristics and capabilities and follow a multi stage development process scenarios of policy interventions developed in a companion modelling approach indicate that the effect of interventions differs between actors depending on their capabilities successful interventions account for the specific motivations and capabilities of different actors provide a portfolio of support along the development process and recognise the important strategic role of local authorities in supporting low carbon energy infrastructure

considering the energy water and food nexus towards an integrated modelling approach the areas of energy water and food policy have numerous interwoven concerns ranging from ensuring access to services to environmental impacts to price volatility these issues manifest in very di

an economic perspective on experience curves and dynamic economies in renewable energy technologies this paper analyzes dynamic economies in renewable energy technologies the paper has two contributions the first is to test the robustness of experience in solar photovoltaic solar thermal and wind energy to the addition of an explicit time trend which has been done in experience studies for other industries but not for renewable energy technologies estimation is carried out on the assumption that cumulative capacity industry production average firm production and electricity generation affect experience and thus the fall in price the second contribution is to test the impact of r d on price reduction in general cumulative experience is found to be highly statistically significant when estimated alone and highly statistically insignificant when time is added to the model the effect of r d is small and statistically significant in solar photovoltaic technology and statistically insignificant in solar thermal and wind technologies

uncertainties in future energy demand in uk residential heating fossil fuels are the main source of space heating in the uk and therefore climate mitigation implies a systemic change in space heating systems the challenge is difficult because of an inefficient building stock and high penetration of natural gas we present new quantified scenarios for residential energy use in the uk to 2050 with minimal policy intervention the uk will remain locked into a gas based heating system which would conflict with the policy goal of decarbonisation however there is a range of scenarios in which this is avoided a system heavily reliant on heat pumps powered by low carbon electricity is uk policy makers currently preferred alternative we conclude that some shift in this direction is likely to be required but complete reliance on this solution raises a number of problems greater use of energy efficiency and biomass can also play a significant role these options have different risks but a more diversified strategy would be more prudent we conclude that the future of uk residential space heating is very uncertain but meeting low carbon heating goals is better conceptualised as reducing reliance on gas rather than necessarily mass electrification our analysis has implications for any country with high use of fossil fuels in space heating and ambitious decarbonisation goals

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

environmental services as a strategy for sustainable development in rural amazonia abstract rural amazonians especially indians extractivists and other forest dwellers desperately need something that they can sell sale of material commodities taken from the rainforest is the focus of most attempts to encourage sustainable development for these populations but the mother lode waiting to be tapped is not a material commodity but rather the forest s environmental services converting services like biodiversity maintenance carbon storage and water cycling into monetary flows that can support a population of forest guardians requires crossing a series of hurdles reliable quantification of the magnitude of services being offered is a first necessity how to convert forest environmental services into an income stream and how to convert this stream into a foundation for sustainable development in rural amazonia is a great challenge effort should be focused on tapping environmental services as a long term strategy for maintaining both rainforest and its population in addition to progressing toward long term goals immediate measures are needed to support the population and to avoid further loss of forest

the effects of rent control expansion on tenants landlords and inequality evidence from san francisco using a 1994 law change we exploit quasi experimental variation in the assignment of rent control in san francisco to study its impacts on tenants and landlords leveraging new data tracking individuals migration we find rent control limits renters mobility by 20 percent and lowers displacement from san francisco landlords treated by rent control reduce rental housing supplies by 15 percent by selling to owner occupants and redeveloping buildings thus while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run ultimately undermining the goals of the law

exploring domestic micro cogeneration in the netherlands an agent based demand model for technology diffusion abstract micro cogeneration micro chp is a new technology at the household level producing electricity in cogeneration with domestic heating thereby increasing the overall efficiency of domestic energy production we have developed a prototypical agent based simulation model for energy technologies competing for demand at the consumer level the model is specifically geared towards the competition between micro chp and incumbent condensing boilers in the model both technologies compete on purchase price and costs of usage to which various types of consumers decide on the installation of either technology simulations with various gas and electricity prices show that micro chp diffusion could be seriously inhibited if demand for natural gas decreases e g due to insulation measures further simulations explore various subsidy schemes a subsidy for purchase is only found to be effective within a limited range of 1400 3250 a subsidy based on decreasing price difference between the competing technologies is much more cost effective than fixed purchase subsidies simulations of a subsidy scheme for usage show that a fast market penetration can be reached but this does not yet take full advantage of technological progress in terms of decreasing co2 emissions selection of the most effective scheme thus depends on the policy criteria assumed

the effect of rent control on housing quality change a longitudinal analysis it is widely believed that rent control leads to a decline in the quality of rental housing this study examines the effect of rent control on the quality of rental housing in new york city quality change is linked to the suppression of rent below market levels and other characteristics of the housing unit we develop a first order nonstationary heterogeneous markov model that allows for true state dependence observed heterogeneity nonparametric unobserved heterogeneity and a mover stayer structure the results offer some support for the belief that rent control leads to a deterioration in housing quality but suggest the need for additional investigation of this issue

saving tropical forests as a global warming countermeasure an issue that divides the environmental movement abstract saving tropical forests as a global warming countermeasure has become one of the environmental movement s most divisive issues divisions are just as sharp as the better known ones between government positions while the debate is often couched in scientific terms and with appeals to high universal principles the positions of the different partisans to the debate are better understood in terms of hidden agendas conscious or not in the case of european governments which oppose inclusion of forests in the kyoto protocol s clean development mechanism the exclusion of forests would lead to improvement of industrial competitiveness as compared to the us in the case of brazil opposition to including avoided deforestation fits with conspiracy theories regarding internationalization of the amazon for european and european dominated non governmental organizations ngos opposition to forests is best explained as an opportunistic blow at us consumption culture which is reviled for reasons largely unrelated to climate change from the point of view of brazilian ngos concerned with maintaining amazonian forest these alternative agendas are side issues that attractive as they might be do not merit throwing away a major opportunity for obtaining monetary flows for forest maintenance more carbon can be maintained in the forests than the amount of carbon credit granted in this way even if the carbon in the forests is temporary at some point a net benefit exists for the climate from having the forest project instead of a smaller reduction in fossil fuel emissions proposals for ton year accounting and for temporary credits effectively deal with issues such as carbon permanence to make the climatic benefits of avoided deforestation real allowing both a gain for climate and the maintenance of biodiversity and other values through carbon mitigation activities the importance of tropical deforestation in global greenhouse gas emissions means that agreement will eventually have to be reached on how to account for the benefits of avoided deforestation and incorporate them into mitigation activities this will continue to be the case regardless of the course of negotiations in the coming months in the wake of the march 2001 announcement by us president george w bush of his desire to renege on us commitments under the protocol

rationing and rent dissipation in the presence of heterogeneous individuals this paper discusses the implications of rationing by waiting when consumers have different time costs and personal valuations the joint distribution function of time costs and personal valuations is used to characterize market equilibrium it is argued that under certain conditions an increase in the variance of time costs will reduce the dissipation of rent furthermore it is shown that introducing a secondary market for a rationed good does not necessarily improve welfare because total surplus under rationing by waiting depends more on the variance than on the level of time costs and personal valuations the model is also used to discuss other institutions that involve rent seeking activities such as the patent system and import quotas

emerging innovation niches an agent based model the creation of an innovation niche depends on the interaction of three mechanisms involving converging expectations networking among the innovation actors and learning about the novelty through efficient knowledge creation and diffusion such mechanisms define the key characteristics of a network of firms i e the innovation niche and the interaction among them guides the development and diffusion of a new technology in this paper we propose an agent based model to investigate the dynamics characterising such interactions and the role that policy intervention can have in governing the niche development process specifically we consider and assess the impact of two policy actions 1 increasing actors expectations towards the new technology by means of information spreading and 2 providing subsidies aimed at stimulating technological switch our results confirm the importance of policy intervention and show the dominance of information spreading activities over subsidies the former policy action in fact preserves a broad consensus around the new technology a fact which turned out to be fundamental in order to promote efficient knowledge diffusion and the effective use of individual and network resources

technological change in energy systems learning curves logistic curves and input output coefficients abstract learning curves have recently been widely adopted in climate economy models to incorporate endogenous change of energy technologies replacing the conventional assumption of an autonomous energy efficiency improvement however there has been little consideration of the credibility of the learning curve the current trend that many important energy and climate change policy analyses rely on the learning curve means that it is of great importance to critically examine the basis for learning curves here we analyse the use of learning curves in energy technology usually implemented as a simple power function we find that the learning curve cannot separate the effects of price and technological change cannot reflect continuous and qualitative change of both conventional and emerging energy technologies cannot help to determine the time paths of technological investment and misses the central role of r d activity in driving technological change we argue that a logistic curve of improving performance modified to include r d activity as a driving variable can better describe the cost reductions in energy technologies furthermore we demonstrate that the top down leontief technology can incorporate the bottom up technologies that improve along either the learning curve or the logistic curve through changing input output coefficients an application to uk wind power illustrates that the logistic curve fits the observed data better and implies greater potential for cost reduction than the learning curve does

an analysis of uk policies for domestic energy reduction using an agent based tool this paper introduces a new agent based model which incorporates the actions of individual homeowners in a long term domestic stock model and details how it was applied in energy policy analysis the results indicate that current policies are likely to fall significantly short of the 80 target and suggest that current subsidy levels need re examining in the model current subsidy levels appear to offer too much support to some technologies which in turn leads to the suppression of other technologies that have a greater energy saving potential the model can be used by policy makers to develop further scenarios to find alternative more effective sets of policy measures the model is currently limited to the owner occupied stock in england although it can be expanded subject to the availability of data

the total economic value of amazonian deforestation 1978 1993 national income accounting has been criticized because of its failure to encompass the notion of sustainability several studies address this problem through green income accounting i e by adjusting conventionally measured gdp for reduction in a given country s stock of natural resources these studies generally base value on the unit net price of the resource other studies go beyond net price emphasizing a natural resource s total economic value tev that is its non marketable as well as its marketable values this paper combines the green income accounting and tev approaches and applies the new framework to brazil in order to assess the foregone economic benefits resulting from amazonian deforestation the results lend support to calls for greater policy emphasis on conservation of unique and irreplaceable ecosystems 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

toward consilience between biology and economics the contribution of ecological economics abstract during its ten year history ecological economics has made a real difference in the way economists look at the natural world and in the way biologists look at the economy in this survey article we examine the contributions to the journal in terms of e o wilson s concept of consilience that is his argument that the methods and assumptions of any field of study should be consistent with the known and accepted facts in other disciplines in particular we examine the contributions of ecological economics to reconciling the economic theory of the consumer and producer with biophysical reality

a sketch of the economics of the greenhouse effect over the last decade scientists have studied extensively the greenhouse effect which holds that the accumulation of carbon dioxide co2 and other greenhouse gases ghgs is expected to produce global warming and other significant climatic changes over the next century see stephen schneider 1989 the present study presents an economic approach for analyzing policies to slow climate change

time for revisionism on rent control economists traditional hostility to rent contols is based on models that treat the housing market as perfectly competitive and on the experience with hard controls in new york city and many european countries following world war ii the current soft rent control systems in north america are varied and qualitatively different from earlier hard controls the theoretical case against them is weak particularly when the housing market is viewed as imperfectly competitive the empirical case against them is weak too economists should reconsider their blanket opposition to current rent control systems and evaluate them on a case by case basis

can redd still become a market ruptured dependencies and market logics for emission reductions in brazil abstract during almost 20 years of political debate on the nature of payments for ecosystem services pes these schemes have been characterized mostly as a non market approach even though attempts to transform them into market instruments has persistently recurred in these debates one notable example is the materialization of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation redd in brazil where a sustainable development discourse dominates national forest governance at the expense of a carbon commodification discourse this research paper adopts a foucauldian approach to plot the epistemological foundations of the market logics that still influence redd institutionalization in brazil to a large extent and thereby reproduce what we define as a ruptured dependence on nature more specifically we recognize ruptured dependence in the three building blocks of market instruments namely singularization monetary valuation and appropriation our analysis shows that redd institutions have retained the singularization and monetary valuation of emission reductions even though the appropriation processes have rejected the possibility of exchange and instead emphasized the national ownership of emission reductions however appropriation remains a highly politicized process that is sensitive to criticism and open to calls for alternative approaches that are closer to ruptured dependence

housing market spillovers evidence from the end of rent control in cambridge massachusetts we measure the capitalization of housing market externalities into residential housing values by studying the unanticipated elimination of stringent rent controls in cambridge massachusetts in 1995 pooling data on the universe of assessed values and transacted prices of cambridge residential properties between 1988 and 2005 we find that rent decontrol generated substantial robust price appreciation at decontrolled units and nearby never controlled units accounting for a quarter of the 7 8 billion in cambridge residential property appreciation during this period the majority of this contribution stems from induced appreciation of never controlled properties residential investment explains only a small fraction of the total

modelling the diffusion and operation of anaerobic digestions in great britain under future scenarios within the scope of water energy food nexus abstract the paper aims to understand the impacts of the spatial and temporal diffusion of anaerobic digestion ad on the water energy food wef nexus and to quantify the associated environmental social and economic benefits contemporary tight carbon reduction targets urge the need to deploy renewable energy technologies however due to interdependencies across the wef nexus various technologies are beneficial for some but not all sectors this paper quantifies the impacts of future possible ad technology diffusion choices on the environment society and economy this can aid decision makers to identify the potential consequences of various ad alternatives within the next three decades the study considers an integrated wef nexus approach and accounts for the interdependencies within the nexus this was done by developing an agent based model abm and simulating the relations between the main players within the nexus thus examining the upscaling of ad diffusion and its consequences for water consumption energy production transportation landfill use food waste processing and digestate generation three future wef nexus scenarios that reflect potential alternatives of society and technology in great britain up to 2050 were utilised by the abm implementation to test the sensitivity of ad diffusion choices these scenarios describe possible changes to lifestyle governance technologies climate and social structures accounting for the uncertainty associated with such future simulations the monte carlo method was employed to estimate the potential variations in scenario outputs results suggest that decentralisation results in the largest carbon reduction but can incur more costs centralisation consumes 35 more water but produces 37 more energy biogas the paper has visualised the scenario outputs graphically to highlight the consequences of neglecting the inter relationships between environmental social and economic aspects of ad

a three dimensional model of residential energy consumer archetypes for local energy policy design in the uk this paper reviews major studies in three traditional lines of research in residential energy consumption in the uk i e economic infrastructure behaviour and load profiling based on the review the paper proposes a three dimensional model for archetyping residential energy consumers in the uk by considering property energy efficiency levels the greenness of household behaviour of using energy and the duration of property daytime occupancy with the proposed model eight archetypes of residential energy consumers in the uk have been identified they are pioneer greens follower greens concerned greens home stayers unconscientious wasters regular wasters daytime wasters and disengaged wasters using a case study these archetypes of residential energy consumers demonstrate the robustness of the 3 d model in aiding local energy policy intervention design in the uk

equity and efficiency aspects of rent control an empirical study of new york city modem rent controls arose during world war ii to deal with the war related influx into urban areas since then numerous cities have either considered adopted or eliminated rent controls the policy debate about the desirability of rent controls continues unabated and becomes particularly acute when high inflation rates drive up rents rapidly rent controls have both efficiency and distributional consequences the economics literature has produced theoretical insights about the inefficiencies created by rent controls this literature is frequently cited by opponents of rent controls who argue that the efficiency costs of rent controls are manifested in a decaying housing stock and altered mobility patterns proponents of rent control invariably argue that the distributional impacts of rent controls outweigh efficiency costs considering the large number of cities that have investigated or adopted rent controls relatively little empirical research documents either the efficiency or distributional effects of rent controls the most notable exceptions are the studies of new york city by de salvo 3 olsen 13 and roistacher 15 and the studies of los angeles by rydell et al 16 and fallis and smith 4 more recently linneman lo and marks 12 have further examined ramifications of rent controls in new york city and vancouver this paper fills some gaps in knowledge about the effects of rent controls we examine rent controls in new york city in 1968 using the new york city housing and vacancy survey 2 the paper extends the work of olsen 13 although there are important differences in both the questions addressed and methodology used this paper examines in detail the distributional consequences of rent controls for new york city residents both

decision criteria of european and latin american market actors for tropical forestry projects providing environmental services converting the environmental services of tropical forests from public goods to tradable services is a promising approach to sustaining tropical forests ecosystem functions and services we hypothesize that the development of markets for these environmental services will substantially depend on compliance with requirements of key market actors representing supply and demand sides this paper analyzes market actors decision criteria related to engagement in tropical forestry projects that provide environmental services in a questionnaire survey 45 experts from latin america and europe representing key market actor groups i e certifiers consulting companies financial institutions governmental organizations industrial companies and non governmental organizations ngos were asked to name and weight criteria that tropical forestry projects should meet in order to attract their institution s engagement many of these 45 institutions are already involved in several market activities related to tropical forestry projects and environmental services including asset management certification consultancy credit business investments project ownership and trade brokerage the collected criteria cover a variety of topics that clearly go beyond frequently applied sustainability dimensions in forestry related multi criteria based decision making i e social environmental and economic dimensions for example relatively many criteria involve topics such as project management risk management or marketing while differences in criteria weighting among market actor groups are not significant we found a significant interaction between criteria weights and the provenance of participants indicating that latin american and european market actors nominate and weight single decision criteria differently the five criteria with highest mean weights in the european sample are social benefits legal compliance sustainability environmental benefits and stakeholder participation the latin american market actors weighted highest expertise and capacity building financial resources political aspects information management and markets generally latin american market actors emphasize criteria related to markets and information knowledge management whereas european participants tend to assign importance to social and environmental benefits and sustainability the survey provides preliminary insights into bottom up defined decision criteria relevant for key actors in the market of tropical forestry based environmental

tropical forests tipping points and the social cost of deforestation abstract recent work has suggested that tropical forest and savanna represent alternative stable states which are subject to drastic switches at tipping points in response to changes in rainfall patterns and other drivers deforestation cost studies have ignored the likelihood and possible economic impact of a forest savanna critical transition therefore underestimating the true social cost of deforestation we explore the implications of a forest savanna critical transition and propose an alternative framework for calculating the economic value of a standing tropical forest our framework is based on an average cost method as opposed to currently used marginal cost methods for the design of optimal land use policy or payments for ecosystem services we apply this framework to the calculation of the social cost of deforestation of the amazon rainforest

diffusion paths for micro cogeneration using hydrogen in the netherlands we estimate the diffusion of micro cogeneration systems micogen using hydrogen produced from natural gas in the netherlands for the 2000 2050 period on the basis of economical factors the diffusion is important for the transition to a hydrogen economy based on renewables with natural gas paving the way for hydrogen from renewables for three scenarios full diffusion takes place in the period 2020 2050 the most important factors behind the diffusion are 1 growing energy demand resulting in lower hydrogen costs and higher energy costs in the reference case and 2 lower costs of micogen stemming from learning economies the model is advanced by considering all costs components for heterogeneous users which have been calculated for the entire diffusion period it is the first threshold diffusion model that is being applied to the diffusion of technological clusters involving new or adapted infrastructures 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

policy design and technological substitution investigating the reach regulation in an agent based model this article proposes an agent based model to study the impact of the european regulation reach on industrial dynamics this new regulation was adopted in 2006 and establishes a new philosophy of how to design environmental protection and health especially through the authorization process and the extended producer responsibility the main contribution of this article is to investigate how different combinations of flexible and stringent mechanisms create the incentives and constraints to shape market selection and innovation the model outcomes stress that 1 stringency is the most determining feature of policy design timing is also decisive but it appears to be of secondary importance 2 technology substitution that brings radical technological change and significant pollution reduction is possible only if regulation is stringent enough but after many sacrifices especially in terms of market concentration and number of failures and 3 soft regulation does not lead to technology transition because of weak incentive and selection effects

do energy scenarios pay sufficient attention to the environment lessons from the uk to support improved policy outcomes scenario development is widely used to support the formation of energy policy but many energy scenarios consider environmental interactions only in terms of climate change we suggest that efforts to develop more holistic energy pathways going beyond post hoc analysis of environmental and social implications can usefully draw on environmental scenarios a detailed content analysis of uk energy and environmental scenarios was therefore undertaken with energy scenarios selected on the basis that they were recent had a direct link to energy policy and covered a range of scenario types the energy scenarios rarely considered societal drivers beyond decarbonisation and focused on quantifiable parameters such as gdp while the environmental scenarios provided a richer narrative on human behaviour and social change as socio economic issues remain fundamental to the success of energy policies this is a key area which should be better addressed within energy scenarios the environmental impacts of energy scenarios were rarely considered but could have a significant bearing on the likelihood of pathway outcomes being realised fuller evaluation of the environmental interactions of energy systems is therefore required although the analysis focuses on the uk some international scenarios show similar limitations suggesting that the conclusions are more widely applicable