modelling the redirection of technical change the pitfalls of incorporeal visions of the economy this paper discusses attempts to represent the role of r d in the transition towards a low carbon economy through models with no meaningful granularity to inform the studied phenomenon by means of a critical analysis of acemoglu et al 2012 we show that the advantage of these models their analytical tractability does not make up for their disadvantages lack of control over policy implications and questionable numerical results on the one hand a comprehensive analysis of the results of acemoglu et al 2012 shows that even research subsidies do not pave the way for ambitious climate policies with low transitory costs thus contradicting their policy message on the other hand critical parameters such as the elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty technologies carbon sinks or the productivity of researchers are not in accordance with existing scientific knowledge we show that using more realistic parameters leads to even more pessimistic conclusions and that their model provides no leeway for overcoming them we suggest that a too highly aggregated model can only describe an incorporeal economy and comes to a deadlock we propose a more promising route for economic research in order to break this deadlock

identifying roles of international institutions in clean energy technology innovation and diffusion in the developing countries matching barriers with roles of the institutions abstract the development of clean energy technologies is a central issue in climate change negotiation the signatory countries to the united nations convention on climate change agreed to organize the technology executive committee and the climate technology centre and network the objectives of this paper are twofold the first objective is to show a broad landscape of barriers in technology development the paper summarizes the results of key case studies that were conducted to uncover technology specific barriers in technology development these case studies include both technologies for industrial use such as wind bio energy and building energy efficiency and technologies for individual use such as light emitting diodes and photovoltaic panels the case studies also contain technologies at the innovation stage such as integrated gasification combined cycle and carbon capture and storage the second objective of this paper is to highlight and define roles of international institutions in overcoming identified barriers in clean energy technology development in this paper four areas of focus for international institutions are discussed including 1 increasing r d cooperation at the innovation stage 2 facilitation of intellectual property rights 3 supporting finance and 4 enhancing the enabling environment at the diffusion stage

complementary approaches to discursive contestation on the effects of the ipr regime on technology transfer in the face of climate change the effects of intellectual property rights ipr on the transfer of environmentally sound technologies ests has resulted in discursive contestation on the one hand the ipr regime is regarded as a catalyst to ests transfer on the other hand the ipr regime itself is argued to work as a barrier to the transfer of ests to developing countries this contestation moved to another layer of discussion concerning what to do about the current ipr regime and the climate change regime that overlap on the subject matter of technology transfer the ipr as a catalyst approach prefers the ipr regime to remain as the status quo and that the climate change regime construct an enabling environment by lowering the transaction costs of technology transfer and enhancing the regulatory capacity of developing countries on the contrary skeptics of the role of the ipr regime in ests transfer prefer an active utilization of the flexible mechanisms of the ipr regime and more interventionist actions by the climate change regime for effective ipr sharing regarding this bi polar contestation this paper analyzes why and where this discursive contestation occurs based on the economic theories of market failure the benefits and difficulties of remedial institutional approaches to tackle market failures are explored then complementary institutional designs in compatibility with the ipr regime and in response to market failures are explored with exemplary cases under the climate change regime

climate coalitions and international trade assessment of cooperation incentives by issue linkage this paper investigates climate control coalition games it studies whether incentives exist for non cooperating nations like the usa to join a coalition based upon issue linkage issue linkage is considered through increased r d expenditures triggering improved technological innovations that advance energy efficiencies model calculations demonstrate that incentives exist for non cooperating countries like the usa to join a climate control coalition if nations cooperate on technological innovations restrictions on trade such as sanction mechanisms against non cooperating countries are not necessarily an incentive to join a coalition technological spillover effects lead to improved economic situations and increased energy efficiencies in non cooperating countries

technology gap global value chain and carbon intensity evidence from global manufacturing industries abstract the technological progress of a country may mean that its technology gap compared to the frontier has changed which will induce a change in its positioning in the global value chain and affect its carbon intensity using paten data input output database and the global value chain index we employ systematic generalized method of moments quantile regression with panel data and multilevel mediation analysis to measure empirically the impact of the technology gap on carbon intensity and positioning on the global value chain the empirical analysis shows that narrowing the technology gap will reduce significantly a country s carbon intensity further the effect of the technology gap on carbon intensity is more pronounced on industries with higher carbon intensity the mechanism test using the mediation effect model proves that the impact of the technology gap on carbon intensity is achieved by changing in the position of global value chain the findings suggest that a country s carbon intensity performance is not only affected by its own technological progress but also by global frontiers therefore a country should not only pay attention to its own technological progress but also to the development of global frontier technologies and speed of technological progress

rent and rent seeking in renewable energy support policies feed in tariff vs renewable portfolio standard abstract two popular policies for fostering electricity from renewable energy sources res e are fit feed in tariffs and rps renewable portfolio standards although it is essential for the government to intervene in the renewable energy market for a positive externality of res e poorly designed market regulations can lead to excess profits for the renewable energy sector which in turn increases policy costs in addition those who benefit from such regulations may actively seek rents this paper explores the rents or windfall profits generated through rps and fit and furthermore investigates which is more substantial for the case of south korea which has had experience with fit and rps over the past 10 years according to the results rents generated from rps were bigger than those from fit except for solar pv in south korea moreover this study also investigates the policy design elements that could curb these rents

supplementing an emissions tax by a feed in tariff for renewable electricity to address learning spillovers abstract in the presence of learning spillovers related to renewable energy technologies an optimal strategy to mitigate climate change should complement an emissions tax by a subsidy for renewables this article addresses the question how such subsidy should be designed it is shown that the widely used approach of a revenue neutral fixed feed in tariff can yield an optimal outcome under restrictive conditions only it has to be adapted continuously as the electricity price changes moreover funding the tariff by a surcharge on the electricity price has important implications for the design of the emission tax the optimal tax rate has to be below the pigovian level differentiated across fossil fuels and adapted over time as the patterns of technological development change these requirements may pose a formidable challenge for practical decision making however it is important to point out that the eventual choices made with respect to the design and funding of a feed in tariff have to be based on a careful and more comprehensive policy assessment including inter alia economic effects beyond the electricity sector and existing institutional constraints

does government r d policy mainly benefit scientists and engineers conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to r d significantly exceeds the private rate of return and therefore r d should be subsidized in the u s the government has directly funded a large fraction of total r d spending this paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity the majority of r d spending is actually just salary payments for r d workers their labor supply however is quite inelastic so when the government funds r d a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages using cps data on wages of scientific personnel this paper shows that government r d spending raises wages significantly particularly for scientists related to defense such as physicists and aeronautical engineers because of the higher wages conventional estimates of the effectiveness of r d policy may be 30 to 50 too high the results also imply that by altering the wages of scientists and engineers even for firms not receiving federal support government funding directly crowds out private inventive activity this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

did the invisible hand need a regulatory glove to develop a green thumb some historical perspective on market incentives win win innovations and the porter hypothesis the idea that properly designed environmental regulations can improve a firm s competitiveness while simultaneously contributing to a cleaner environment through the development of so called win win innovations i e that reduce environmental damage while simultaneously increasing profits is usually credited to porter 1991 numerous studies have since attempted to assess the validity of the concept with mixed results this paper contributes to this debate by surveying a nearly forgotten body of literature written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that discussed the impact of market incentives on the development of valuable by products out of industrial waste based on the opinions held by several industrial chemists engineers technical journalists and economists the development of win win manufacturing practices seems to have been primarily the result of the profit motive although actual or potential legal actions based on private property rights and or government regulations occasionally triggered this process after reviewing some important historical writings on the latter issue a suggestion is made that perhaps the best way to craft well designed environmental regulations is to return to a private property rights approach to mitigating pollution problems whenever possible

addressing climate change with a comprehensive us cap and trade system there is growing impetus for a domestic us climate policy that can provide meaningful reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide co2 and other greenhouse gases i describe and analyse an up stream economy wide co2 cap and trade system which implements a gradual trajectory of emissions reductions with inclusion over time of non co2 greenhouse gases and includes mechanisms to reduce cost uncertainty initially half of the allowances are allocated through auction and half through free distribution with the share being auctioned gradually increasing to 100 per cent over 25 years the system provides for linkage with emission reduction credit projects in other countries harmonization over time with effective cap and trade systems in other countries and regions and appropriate linkage with actions taken in other countries in order to establish a level playing field among domestically produced and imported products

monopoly distortions in durability and multi dimensional quality i show that swan s 1970 independence result requires a multiplicative interaction between durability and all other quality attributes because there is no compelling argument for a multiplicativity in quality monopolists tend to distort durability even with constant marginal costs distortions in durability and other quality aspects are aligned exactly when the marginal cost of quality do not increase too much with durability

incentivizing wood based fischer tropsch diesel through financial policy instruments an economic assessment for norway the objective of this study is to evaluate a select set of financial incentive instruments that can be employed by the norwegian government for encouraging early investment and production experienc

innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector this paper discusses policy instruments for redirecting technical change within the electricity sector to mitigate climate change first we unravel the mechanism behind directed technical change explaining why markets may underprovide innovations in expensive renewable technologies in comparison to innovations in energy efficient fossil fuel generators subsequently we characterize technical change in electricity generation technologies stressing the heterogeneity of knowledge spillovers both within and between clean electricity generation technologies we argue that there exists a rationale for a portfolio approach to innovation in the electricity sector i e optimal innovation policies are neither fully generic nor fully specific and they need to be adapted in response to new information learned by the government the existing innovation literature does not however provide a clear cut answer for designing such a policy we compare policy instruments and argue that public r d support to clean technologies either in the form of subsidies or prizes seems to be the prime candidate for implementing non generic innovation policy

energy tax credits and housing improvement this paper investigates whether federal and state tax credits allowed to households who make energy saving improvements to their residence lead to an increase in improvement activity a two period utility maximization model of household behaviour is used to determine the theoretical influence of tax credits energy prices and other factors on the optimal magnitude of conservation capital improvement regressions using various qualitative measures of conservation improvement as the dependent variable are estimated using household level energy consumption and improvement data consistent with evidence from earlier surveys the empirical results do not support the hypothesis that energy tax credits lead to more widespread or more extensive energy conservation improvement activity

analysing future trends of renewable electricity in the eu in a low carbon context the aim of this paper is to analyse the situation and trends of electricity from renewable energy sources res e in the eu up to 2030 taking into account several drivers and barriers and different maturity levels for the renewable energy technologies the methodology is based on the results of simulation models providing insights on future outlooks complemented with an analysis of regulations and other drivers and barriers regarding the most mature renewable electricity technologies the main drivers will be public policies carbon prices and support schemes and the expected up ward trend in fossil fuel prices and the main barriers are related to grid access administrative procedures and the exhaustion of places with the best wind resource for those already commercial but expensive technologies the main driver is support schemes but not carbon prices allowing the exploitation of the large potential for investment cost reductions barriers are mostly related to their high investment costs finally for those technologies which are emerging and immature further technical improvements as a result of r d efforts will be needed and they cannot be expected to significantly penetrate the european electricity market until 2030

bottom up estimation of industrial and public r d investment by technology in support of policy making the case of selected low carbon energy technologies abstract this paper discusses a bottom up approach to estimate the level of r d investment by technology in areas where data are scarce it develops a four step methodology for the estimation of corporate r d investments at technology level this approach can overcome gaps in existing data by combining publicly available information in a novel way even though it introduces some uncertainty this is illustrated for a set of low carbon energy technologies that were identified as key for meeting europe s long term energy and climate objectives by the european strategic energy technology plan the paper finds that the aggregated r d investments dedicated to these technologies amounted to 3 3 billion in the eu in 2007 including public funding from european union member states and at eu level and industrial research activities from companies with headquarters registered in the eu the results allow conclusions on the european energy research policy to be drawn such as the dominance of industrial funds and have provided significant input to the european policy making in this field the paper ends with suggestions on how to further enhance the accuracy of the approach and how to widen its application to other sectors

environmental performance innovation and spillovers evidence from a regional namea abstract the achievement of positive environmental performance ep at national level could strongly depend on differences in regional features namely productive specialization regulation stringency and innovation capabilities of both public institutions and the private business sector we present empirical evidence for a newly released namea available for the 20 italian regions in order to demonstrate the role played by sector innovation regional spillovers and environmental policies the italian north south divide regarding industrial development and productive specialization patterns seems to affect regional ep nonetheless such a pattern presents some interesting differences revealing a more heterogeneous distribution of emissions which may reflect the role of other driving forces in particular agglomerative effects seem to play a major role and the ep of neighboring regions influences the regional internal ep this means that together with the spatial concentration of specific sectors into restricted areas there is also some convergence in the adoption of cleaner or dirtier production process techniques finally interregional technological spillovers are more important than sector internal innovation for improving ep revealing that accounting for spatial features and linking ecological economics to regional economics are crucial in understanding the key drivers of ep

are there environmental benefits from driving electric vehicles the importance of local factors we combine a theoretical discrete choice model of vehicle purchases an econometric analysis of electricity emissions and the ap2 air pollution model to estimate the geographic variation in the environmental benefits from driving electric vehicles the second best electric vehicle purchase subsidy ranges from 2 785 in california to 4 964 in north dakota with a mean of 1 095 ninety percent of local environmental externalities from driving electric vehicles in one state are exported to others implying they may be subsidized locally even when the environmental benefits are negative overall geographically differentiated subsidies can reduce deadweight loss but only modestly

political economy constraints on carbon pricing policies what are the implications for economic efficiency environmental efficacy and climate policy design abstract economists traditionally view a pigouvian fee on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions either via carbon taxes or emissions caps and permit trading cap and trade as the economically optimal or first best policy to address climate change related externalities yet several political economy factors can severely constrain the implementation of these carbon pricing policies including opposition of industrial sectors with a concentration of assets that would lose considerable value under such policies the collective action nature of climate mitigation efforts principal agent failures and a low willingness to pay for climate mitigation by citizens real world implementations of carbon pricing policies can thus fall short of the economically optimal outcomes envisioned in theory consistent with the general theory of the second best the presence of binding political economy constraints opens a significant opportunity space for the design of creative climate policy instruments with superior political feasibility economic efficiency and environmental efficacy relative to the constrained implementation of carbon pricing policies this paper presents theoretical political economy frameworks relevant to climate policy design and provides corroborating evidence from the united states context it concludes with a series of implications for climate policy making and argues for the creative pursuit of a mix of second best policy instruments

nonconventional renewable energy governance in brazil lessons to learn from the german experience abstract this paper presents a comparative analysis of energy governance regarding nonconventional renewable energy sources ncres in brazil and germany brazil is a world leader in the use of conventional renewable energy sources such as hydro power while germany has been achieving outstanding results in fostering ncres the focus is on two critical issues the legal and regulatory framework and the institutions created to support the ncres market development the comparison shows that despite the very different energy situations and policy drivers valuables lessons can be extracted from the german experience the main lesson for brazil is to think ncres as a strategic opportunity to rely less on fossil fuel and large hydroelectric power plants to decentralize the electric power sector to use the huge solar biomass and wind power potential available in the country and to create a environment friendly ncres industry to this end three critical points were identified 1 the legal and regulatory framework should be improved 2 long term energy planning taking into account social economic and climate issues and 3 the current institutions supporting ncres in brazil should be upgraded and or new ones such as more specific energy agencies should be created

the economics of renewable energy support abstract this paper uses theoretical and numerical economic equilibrium models to examine optimal renewable energy re support policies for wind and solar resources in the presence of a carbon externality associated with the use of fossil fuels we emphasize three main issues for policy design the heterogeneity of intermittent natural resources budget neutral financing rules and incentives for carbon mitigation we find that differentiated subsidies for wind and solar while being optimal only yield negligible efficiency gains policies with smart financing of re subsidies which either relax budget neutrality or use polluter pays financing in the context of budget neutral schemes can however approximate socially optimal outcomes our analysis suggests that optimally designed re support policies do not necessarily have to be viewed as a costly second best option when carbon pricing is unavailable

technical change and the marginal cost of abatement abstract we address one aspect of the treatment of technical change in the environmental economics literature how technical change impacts the marginal cost of abatement we review a selection of papers that employ a variety of representations of technical change and show that these representations have quite different and sometimes surprising effects on the marginal costs of pollution reductions we argue that these varied representations in fact correspond to a variety of different technology options we then present results indicating that this representation matters the impacts of technical change on the marginal cost of abatement can crucially impact policy analysis

free entry and social inefficiency our goal is to provide a simple yet general exposition of the conditions under which the number of entrants in a free entry equilibrium is excessive insufficient or optimal our analysis compares the number of firms that enter a market when there is free entry with the number that would be desired by a social planner who is unable to control the behavior of firms once they are in the market that is we consider the second best problem of choosing the welfare maximizing number of firms while we take as given their noncompetitive behavior after entry we demonstrate that the crucial conditions for establishing the presence of an entry bias can be stated quite simply in terms of the outcome of the postentry game played by entrants in contrast to previous work we do not need to model this postentry game explicitly

the problem of the commons still unsettled after 100 years the problem of the commons is more important to our lives and thus more central to economics than a century ago when katharine coman led off the first issue of the american economic review as the us and other economies have grown the carrying capacity of the planet in regard to natural resources and environmental quality has become a greater concern particularly for commonproperty and open access resources the focus of this article is on some important unsettled problems of the commons within the realm of natural resources there are special challenges associated with renewable resources which are frequently characterized by open access an important example is the degradation of openaccess fisheries critical commons problems are also associated with environmental quality a key contribution of economics has been the development of market based approaches to environmental protection these instruments are key to addressing the ultimate commons problem of the twenty first century global climate change jel q15 q21 q22 q25 q54

a competitive carbon emissions scheme with hybrid fiscal incentives the evidence from a taxi industry abstract as two major approaches to reduce carbon emissions command and control instruments and market based carbon trading systems have their own weaknesses our paper first proposes a type of endogenous equilibrium methodology to dynamically derive the industrial carbon emissions standards at the equilibrium the sum of all carbon assets and liabilities is zero in the considered industry moreover the standards fall over time with low carbon technological advance most importantly combining pigou s and coase s ideas we construct a fiscal instrument accounting for both carbon taxes and allowances based on the dynamically improved emissions standards and carbon trading prices this no revenue for government method implements a self operated ecology for carbon trading market finally considering the waterloo recession of carbon prices we introduce an adjustment factor into the model which generates a negative feedback mechanism with carbon prices to support our idea we present the application to beijing taxi industry in detail and raise relative policy implications based on the evidence

carbon pricing and the diffusion of renewable power generation in eastern europe a linear programming approach the purpose of this paper is to analyze the costs for reducing co2 emissions in the power generating sectors in croatia the european part of russia macedonia serbia and the ukraine in 2020 by using a linear programming model the model takes into account the impact of technology learning and is based on the underlying assumptions of the so called rains model frequently used to assess the potential and the costs for reducing air pollution in europe the results based on an exogenously given 15 percent reduction target for co2 emissions show that the marginal cost for switching from a carbon intense fuel to either a low carbon or to a renewable energy source differs significantly among the countries the marginal costs range from 4 to 90 per ton co2 and are mainly due to country differences in the availability of renewables existing technologies and costs the results also indicate that although it is clear that the eastern european countries are not homogeneous in terms of co2 abatement potential and costs no general conclusions can be made of the region this may have important implications for future ji cdm activities for instance risk factors such as policy uncertainty and institutional obstacles may become crucial in determining the future allocation of ji cdm projects across the region

on the economics of renewable energy sources abstract with the global expansion of renewable energy re technologies the provision of optimal re policy packages becomes an important task we review pivotal aspects regarding the economics of renewables that are relevant to the design of an optimal re policy many of which are to date unresolved we do so from three interrelated perspectives that a meaningful public policy framework for inquiry must take into account first we explore different social objectives justifying the deployment of re technologies and review model based estimates of the economic potential of re technologies i e their socially optimal deployment level second we address pivotal market failures that arise in the course of implementing the economic potential of re sources in decentralized markets third we discuss multiple policy instruments curing these market failures our framework reveals the requirements for an assessment of the relevant options for real world decision makers in the field of re policies this review makes it clear that there are remaining white areas on the knowledge map concerning consistent and socially optimal re policies

climate policies for road transport revisited ii closing the policy gap with cap and trade current policies in the road transport sector fail to deliver consistent and efficient incentives for greenhouse gas abatement see companion article by creutzig et al in press market based instruments such as cap and trade systems close this policy gap and complement traditional policies that are required where specific market failures arise even in presence of strong existing non market policies cap and trade delivers additional abatement and efficiency by incentivizing demand side abatement options this paper analyzes generic design options and economic impacts of including the european road transport sector into the eu ets suitable points of regulation are up and midstream in the fuel chain to ensure effectiveness cover all emissions and avoid double counting efficiency incentivize all abatement options and low transaction costs based on year 2020 marginal abatement cost curves from different models and current eu climate policy objectives we show that in contrast to conventional wisdom road transport inclusion would not change the eu ets allowance price hence industrial carbon leakage induced by adding road transport to the eu ets may be less important than previously estimated

the determinants of asset stripping theory and evidence from the transition economies abstract during the transition from plan to market managers and politicians succeeded in maintaining control of large parts of the stock of socialist physical capital despite the obvious importance of this phenomenon there have been no efforts to model measure and investigate this process empirically this paper tries to fill this gap by putting forward theory and econometric evidence we argue that asset stripping is driven by the interplay between the firm s potential profitability and its ability to influence law enforcement our econometric results for about 950 firms in five transition economies provide support for this argument

does energy policy hurt international competitiveness of firms a comparative study for germany switzerland and austria this paper investigates the impact of energy policies on the export performance of firms there has been a long policy debate on potentially negative impacts of cost increasing energy policies on international competitiveness we use firm level data from three countries with similar industry structure but different energy policies germany switzerland and austria we rely on firm manager assessments on the relevance of energy policy in terms of taxes regulations standards subsidies and demand stimulation for their firm operation and link data on the adoption and development of new energy technologies regression analyses and matching approaches both show very few impacts of energy policy on export performance suggesting that either policy impacts on firms cost are negligible in the period of study 2012 to 2014 or likely negative impacts are balanced by the adoption of new technology

variable renewable energy technologies in the turkish electricity market quantile regression analysis of the merit order effect abstract the share of variable renewable energy sources in power supply has increased significantly in many countries however this increase has also created problems in electricity markets while the average day ahead market price has declined in several markets the merit order effect the remuneration mechanisms in some countries have to be revised due to the surge in financial costs yet further research is needed to understand the implications of the merit order effect for remuneration mechanisms thoroughly accordingly this study aims to contribute to the literature through employing a quantile regression model to analyze the merit order effect and discuss its implications for the remuneration mechanism in turkish electricity market model results show significant negative merit order effect for both wind and run of river hydro technologies however this effect varies with respect to demand price level and technology moreover the contribution of these technologies to the total welfare in the turkish electricity market does not favor fixed price payments in conclusion it is recommended that the remuneration mechanism is revised to include the temporal value of variable renewable energy sources and electricity market design should reflect the locational value of variable renewable energy sources in turkey

energy tax credits and residential conservation investment evidence from panel data using panel data on individual tax returns and variation in state tax policy we measure the impact of government tax policies to encourage residential conservation investment on the probability of making these investments unlike previous work we account for unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for energy saving activities and its possible correlation with tax policy at the state level we find that controlling for unobserved heterogeneity is very important based on our preferred point estimate of the tax price coefficient a 10 percentage point change in the tax price for energy investment would lead to a 24 percent increase in the probability of making an investment

on the timing of climate agreements a central issue in climate policy is the question whether long term targets for greenhouse gas emissions should be adopted this paper analyzes strategic effects related to the timing of such commitments using a two country model we identify a redistributive effect that undermines long term cooperation when countries are asymmetric and side payments are unavailable the effect enables countries to shift rents strategically via their r d efforts under delayed cooperation in contrast a complementarity effect stabilizes long term cooperation because early commitments in abatement induce countries to invest more in low carbon technologies and create additional knowledge spillovers contrasting both effects we endogenize the timing of climate agreements

inventor networks in renewable energies the influence of the policy mix in germany technological change and gains in efficiency of renewable power generation technologies are to a large extent driven by governmental support various policy instruments that can broadly be categorized as technology push demand pull or systemic constitute part of the policy mix for renewable energies our goal is to gain insights into the influence of this policy mix on the intensity and organization of inventive activities for wind power and photovoltaics in germany since the 1980s we examine the effect of different instruments on the size and structure of co inventor networks based on patent data our results indicate notable differences between the technologies the network size for wind power is driven by technology push and systemic instruments while in photovoltaics demand pull is decisive for network growth by and large the instruments complement each other and form a consistent mix of policy instruments the structure of the networks is driven by demand pull for both technologies systemic instruments increase interaction especially in the wind power network and are complementary to demand pull in fostering collaboration

analysis of the eu policy package on climate change and renewables abstract in 2009 the eu decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least by 20 in 2020 compared to 1990 and to supply 20 of energy needs by 2020 from renewable energy sources this paper uses an energy model coupled with a non co 2 greenhouse gas model to assess the range of policy options that were debated to meet both targets policy options include trading of renewable targets carbon trading in power plants and industry and the use of the clean development mechanism to improve cost efficiency the models also examined fairness by analysing the distribution of emission reduction in the non emission trading sector the distribution of co 2 allowances in the emission trading sector and the reallocation of renewable targets across member states the overall costs of meeting both targets range from 0 4 to 0 6 of gdp in 2020 for the eu as a whole the redistribution mechanisms employed significantly improve fairness compared to a cost effective solution

a system dynamic approach for exploring the effects of climate change risks on firms economic performance a number of studies have recently examined the potential relationships between climate change and the business community the majority of such studies have emphasized statistical and benchmarking techniques to identify how climate change could have implications on firms operations and their economic performance these techniques draw primary data from questionnaire surveys and corporate environmental reports in an ex post basis a fact that provide evidence in a linear probabilistic and static character these studies have provided limited insights regarding the future complex effects of climate change on corporate economic performance this paper aims to contribute to this literature by developing a dynamic model to investigate the evolutionary trends of the relationships between climate change risks financial performance and the operational processes of firms the main scope is to identify how physical regulatory reputational and litigation risks will affect day to day operations an integrated model will be established in order to improve managers and academics understanding of climate change and business performance four scenarios will also be tested to illustrate what if relationships in the presence of climate change risks finally the proposed model is based on the corporate climate change management system thinking system dynamic and stella software

government failure and market failure on the inefficiency of environmental and energy policy in this article we describe some important themes in energy and environmental policy there are two main reasons for our interest in these policies first such policies will likely be important in the coming decades as issues related to climate change and energy security come to the fore second there are important lessons to be learned from a careful review of the actual performance of energy and environmental policies we undertake a selective survey of the literature to highlight what is known about the efficiency of particular kinds of policies laws and regulations in these areas this paper makes three key contributions the first is to synthesize a large literature on energy and environmental policy in a way that can be easily digested by both non experts and experts the second contribution is to suggest that if history is a guide then we should not expect many interventions in these policy areas to come close to maximizing net economic benefits the third is to suggest what might be needed for the development of more efficient energy and environmental policies copyright 2010 oxford university press

examining the role of policy design and policy interaction in eu automotive emissions performance gaps in the wake of the 2015 dieselgate scandal the us and european governments publicly confronted automakers about their behaviour which raised concerns about the integrity of the current emissions legislation regimes in this article i argue that flexibilities within the eu s emissions legislative framework afforded automakers the opportunity to legally sidestep strict performance standards laid out in the law and resulted in a significant performance gap in real world driving emissions this article provides a timely examination of eu emission legislation policy design and policy interaction within the european union with the aim of explaining why the eu policy framework failed to regulate the regional automotive industry current research is mostly concerned with the typology and effectiveness of individual environmental policy instruments be it regulatory or economic incentives that aim to influence industry behaviour this article approaches the current eu policy regime in a more holistic manner and focuses on the exploitation of weaknesses in the regulatory framework by private firms which has received little academic attention in the innovation and transition literature a major contribution of this article therefore is a body of primary qualitative interview data from industry elites concerning relevant emissions policies

demand pull instruments and the development of wind power in europe a counterfactual analysis renewable energy technologies are called to play a crucial role in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions since most of these technologies did not yet reach grid parity public policies have been implemented in order to foster their deployment the approach that has been privileged in europe is the demand pull approach that aims at creating a demand for these new technologies and at stimulating their diffusion this paper examines the effect of demand pull policies on the diffusion of onshore wind power technology in six european countries denmark france germany italy portugal and spain in a first step a micro founded model of diffusion is calibrated in order to replicate the observed diffusion of wind power in these six countries in a second step a counterfactual analysis is conducted by investigating several scenarios by taking into account the complex self sustained dynamics of diffusion and the learning spillovers that operate in the wind power sector we can derive several insights about demand pull policies first the impact of a demand pull policy on the diffusion of wind power is determined by the stage at which it comes to support it the effect seems to be stronger at the beginning of the diffusion second international spillovers do operate in the wind power sector these international spillovers however are not strong enough to foster the diffusion of wind power in a country having no demand pull support we can derive from these two statements that a strategy consisting in not implementing any demand pull policy with the expectation that international spillovers will reduce the cost of wind power and foster the diffusion of the technology that then shall become competitive is not a good option for a country targeting a high share of wind power in its energy mix

does host market regulation induce cross border environmental innovation this paper evaluates the effect of host country environmental policy stringency on the offshoring of environmental patents for 2000 top world r d performers it is shown that a more stringent environmental regulation triggers both the extensive and intensive margin of patent offshoring in the field of environmental technologies results are robust to various different specifications alternative definitions of innovation offshoring and of regulation restrictions and to the consideration of possible endogeneity of regulation it is suggested inter alia that r d subsidies and non market based regulatory measures are more important than market based instruments as drivers of cross border environmental innovation length 26 pages

the two faces of market support how deployment policies affect technological exploration and exploitation in the solar photovoltaic industry the recent years have seen a strong rise in policies aiming to increase the diffusion of clean energy technologies while there is general agreement that such deployment policies have been very effective in bringing technologies to the market it is less understood how these policies affect technological innovation to shed more light on this important question we conducted comparative case studies with a global sample of 9 firms producing solar photovoltaic pv modules complemented by in depth interviews with 16 leading pv industry experts we propose that on the one hand policy induced market growth serves as an important catalyst for innovative activity as it raises the absolute level of firm investments in technological exploration on the other hand however deployment policies create an incentive for firms pursuing more mature technologies to shift their balance between exploitation and exploration toward exploitation firms focusing on less mature technologies cannot tap the potentials of exploitative learning to the same extent as those with more mature technologies therefore stimulating strong market growth may raise the barrier to market entry for less mature technologies we conclude that when designing deployment policies great care should be taken to avoid adverse effects on technological diversity and a premature lock in into more established technologies

feed in subsidies taxation and inefficient entry we study energy markets with dirty production and lumpy entry costs of clean production renewables for intermediate entry costs markets yield inefficient production and inefficient entry a mix of three popular regulatory instruments polluter taxation feed in subsidies for renewables and consumption taxation cannot correct these market failures for larger entry costs the instruments are imperfect because they affect marginal incentives whereas entry is a lumpy fixed cost problem whenever the first best is implementable feed in subsidies and consumption taxes are redundant the second best requires feed in subsidies or consumption taxes in addition to a pollution tax and overshoots first best levels given production levels the instruments do not affect the regulator s budget

a tale of two market failures technology and environmental policy abstract market failures associated with environmental pollution interact with market failures associated with the innovation and diffusion of new technologies these combined market failures provide a strong rationale for a portfolio of public policies that foster emissions reduction as well as the development and adoption of environmentally beneficial technology both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the rate and direction of technological advance is influenced by market and regulatory incentives and can be cost effectively harnessed through the use of economic incentive based policy in the presence of weak or nonexistent environmental policies investments in the development and diffusion of new environmentally beneficial technologies are very likely to be less than would be socially desirable positive knowledge and adoption spillovers and information problems can further weaken innovation incentives while environmental technology policy is fraught with difficulties a long term view suggests a strategy of experimenting with policy approaches and systematically evaluating their success

international technology oriented agreements to address climate change much discussion has surrounded possible alternatives for international agreements on climate change particularly post 2012 among these alternatives technology oriented agreements toas are perhaps the least well defined we explore what toas may consist of why they might be sensible which toas already exist in international energy and environmental governance and whether they could make a valuable contribution to addressing climate change we find that toas aimed at knowledge sharing and coordination research development or demonstration could increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of international climate cooperation but are likely to have limited environmental effectiveness on their own technology transfer agreements are likely to have similar properties unless the level of resources expended is large in which case they could be environmentally significant technology specific mandates or incentives could be environmentally effective within the applicable sector but are more likely to make a cost effective contribution when viewed as a complement to rather than a substitute for flexible emissions based policies these results indicate that toas could potentially provide a valuable contribution to the global response to climate change the success of specific toas will depend on their design implementation and the role they are expected to play relative to other components of the policy portfolio

modes of governance for municipal energy efficiency services the case of led street lighting in germany energy efficiency retrofits are often impeded by high perceived investment risks long payback periods and a lack of skills at the municipal level these issues are particularly pronounced as procuring implementing and managing retrofits can exceed existing municipal governance capacities the diffusion of municipal led street lighting as a replacement for conventional lighting serves as an example this paper argues that technological e g complexity and maturity economic e g selling services vs products and financing costs institutional e g property situation and contracts and competency barriers to retrofitting e g lack of measurement capacity and qualified facilitators translate into transaction costs we develop a taxonomy of appropriate modes of municipal retrofitting governance based on transaction costs economics the findings indicate that more market based solutions energy performance contracts in particular can facilitate the procurement of innovative energy efficiency retrofitting solutions and associated investments among municipalities if neutral tenders open book accounting municipal ownership and intermediary organisations allow municipalities to choose appropriate governance structures for particular technologies and retrofits

value of technology in the u s electric power sector impacts of full portfolios and technological change on the costs of meeting decarbonization goals abstract power sector decarbonization is an important pillar of climate mitigation efforts but perspectives differ about the relative competitiveness of generation technologies and how limited portfolio approaches e g where non renewable generation options are prohibited could alter the costs and likelihoods of reaching emissions reduction goals the existing literature on impacts of technological availability and cost on electric sector planning typically use models that do not have sufficient technological spatial and temporal detail to adequately resolve the economic competitiveness of variable renewable energy vis a vis dispatchable generators using a state of the art energy economic model this work examines impacts of technological availability and advanced generation technologies on u s electricity market outcomes across a range of regional market and policy contexts we show that decarbonization costs are 11 76 higher as technological options are removed from consideration incremental compliance costs for a 95 co2 reduction below 2005 levels are roughly twice as high when new nuclear carbon capture equipped units and transmission are not allowed however the economic and technical implications of limited portfolios depend on the market and policy contexts e g costs are higher with stringent targets more extensive end use electrification and lower gas prices and the costs and capabilities of the remaining options the analysis demonstrates how lower temporal and spatial resolution models likely understate the value of technology by omitting key economic and technical features of high variable renewable pathways additionally the analysis quantifies how technological change can lower costs of emissions reductions by 7 73 and how low cost battery storage can provide a hedge against higher costs when technological portfolios are limited