Three Essays on Utility Regulation

Three Essays on Utility Regulation
Author: Vladimir Hlasny
Publisher:
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2006
Genre: Consumer protection
ISBN:

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Energy

Energy
Author: Richard L. Gordon
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1986-11-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262571876

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Energy: Markets and Regulation is a valuable survey of current thinking on energy economics, focusing on the regulation of energy markets. It covers nearly every aspect of the energy sector, including both international and domestic U.S. markets in oil and coal and the particular U.S. conditions in natural gas and nuclear power. It deals with resource estimation and energy supply and demand, and environmental control. Economic and institutional analysis of current problems includes an exploration of their historical background.The thirteen original contributions are dedicated to MIT economist and energy analyst M. A. Adelman. Adelman is the dean of academic economists concerned with energy markets and the effects of government regulation. All who work and teach in this area have been influenced by his ideas and insightful analysis, and many of the chapters in the book draw on and expand his earlier work.The preface by Charles P. Kindleberger and foreword by the editors outline the subject and introduce the essays. Their authors and topics are Paul R. Carpenter, Henry D. Jacoby, and Arthur W. Wright on the evolution of U.S. natural gas markets; G. Campbell Watkins on the interaction of U.S. and Canadian oil policies; Richard L. Gordon on world coal development; Martin B. Zimmerman on the problem of nuclear power in the United States; Paul W. MacAvoy on the EPA's record in controlling industrial air pollution; Robert W. Crandall and Theodore E. Keeler on public policies concerning the private auto; Philip K. Verleger, Jr. on the evolution of oil as a commodity; Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason and Robert S. Pindyck on the theory and experience of cartels in the international minerals markets; Paul Leo Eckbo on worldwide petroleum taxation; Zenon S. Zannetos on oil tanker markets; Gordon M. Kaufman on oil and gas supply assessment; Paul G. Bradley on mineral and petroleum exploration; and Ernst R. Berndt and David 0. Wood on the influence of energy price shocks on U.S. productivity growth.Richard L. Gordon is Professor of Mineral Economics, The Pennsylvania State University; Henry D. Jacoby is Professor of Management, MIT; and Martin B. Zimmerman is Associate Professor of Economics, University of Michigan.

Essays in Electricity Economics

Essays in Electricity Economics
Author: Brittany L. Tarufelli
Publisher:
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2019
Genre: Climatic changes
ISBN: 9781085602976

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Goods markets are designed and regulated at a sub-global level. Although it’s typical to assume one set of market clearing rules across regulated and unregulated regions, trade occurs across a patchwork of sub-global market designs. Not accounting for this heterogeneity in market design can lead to unanticipated outcomes from sub-global regulations, as correcting for one market failure–such as a negative externality from carbon emissions–can lead to another market failure from the market design itself when trade occurs across differing market designs. The anatomy of this second-best problem is considered in the context of U.S. electricity markets, as market clearing mechanisms vary by region, and they imperfectly overlap with state-level climate policies such as carbon prices and renewables subsidies. In Chapter I, I present a review of the theoretical and empirical literature on electricity market design and its interaction with regional climate policies. In the wholesale electricity sector, market design drives both the extent of the forward contract market and the competitiveness of the spot market, which can induce strategic behavior and affect both market and regional climate policy outcomes. Assessing climate policy outcomes under only the assumption of a centralized market design, as is customary in the literature, belies the complexity of electricity market design, which varies regionally. As there is currently an agenda to link regional electricity markets, there is also a need to study how strategic behavior across differing market designs affects emissions when regional climate policies are imposed. In Chapter II, I develop a two-stage model of oligopolistic electricity production to determine if strategic behavior in forward contract and spot markets across differing electricity market designs increases or decreases emissions leakage from regional climate policies. I find that under uncertainty from demand and renewable resource shocks, centralized market designs generally reduce market power through arbitraging away price risk between forward and spot markets. However, under an asymmetric carbon cap and trade program, resulting emissions leakage is decreased by bilateral markets, which act as a structural backstop to emissions leakage. Emissions leakage increases when bilateral markets trade with, or are integrated with centralized markets, potentially reducing the efficacy of regional climate policies. In Chapter III, I study the interaction between sub-global climate policy and sub-global design of goods markets using an example of market expansion from wholesale electricity markets–the Western Energy Imbalance Market (EIM) in California. Using a difference-in-differences and triple-differences framework with matching to account for self-selection, I investigate how the EIM affects emissions leakage from California’s carbon cap and trade program. I find that the EIM caused a modest increase in emissions leakage into participating regions outside California, despite the relatively small trading volumes. The results have implications for ongoing efforts to expand competitive wholesale electricity markets across regions with differing climate policies. The results of this dissertation are informative for sub-global climate policy when trade in goods markets occurs across regions with different market clearing rules. Specifically, reduced transactions costs in trade between regulated and unregulated regions may tend to exacerbate emissions leakage. These results are informative in the context of continuing changes in wholesale electricity markets, including potential market expansions and continued integration of regional electricity markets across the U.S. and the European Union.