An emerging question in demographic economics is whether there is a link between family size and the geographic distance between adult children and elderly parents. Given current population trends, understanding how different configurations of fam- ily size and sibship influence patterns of...

Much progress has been made in recent years on developing and applying a direct measure of utility using survey questions on subjective well-being. In this paper we explore whether this new type of measurement can be fruitfully applied to the study of interdependent utility in general, and...

There is considerable debate regarding the use of intellectual property rights (IPR) to spur innovation in the software industry. In this paper we focus on the choice of intellectual property right regimes and industry growth. We begin by developing a growth optimal mixture of open source and...

In this paper, we use the Global Gas Model to analyze the perspectives and infrastructure needs of the European natural gas market until 2050. Three pathways of natural gas consumption in a future low-carbon energy system in Europe are envisaged: i) a decreasing natural gas consumption, along...

This paper presents a general electricity-CO2 (ELCO) modeling framework that is able to simulate interactions of the energy-only market with different forms for national policy measures. We set up a two sector model where players can invest into various types of generation technologies including...

US shale gas production is generally expected to continue its fast rise. However, a cautious evaluation is needed. Shale gas resource estimates are potentially overoptimistic and it is uncertain to which extent they can be produced economically. Moreover, the adverse environmental effects of...

The transformation of the European energy system requires substantial investment in transmission capacity to facilitate cross-border trade and to efficiently integrate renewable energy sources. However, network planning in the EU is still mainly a national prerogative. In contrast to other...

Political instability of several countries in the Middle East is overshadowing one of the biggest challenges of the upcoming century: Water - a natural resource that is easily taken for granted, but whose scarcity might lead to serious conflicts. This paper investigates an optimal Water...

The Russian-Ukrainian crisis has revitalized the European concerns of supply disruptions of natural gas as experienced in 2006 and 2009. However, the European supply situation, regulation and infrastructure have changed since: imports aremore diversified, EU member states better connected and a...

Short-term operating requirements and constraints in power systems are becoming increasingly important with the greater flexibility needed due to the integration of variable renewables. However, large problem sizes and computational barriers have limited the extent to which they are included in...