Twenty states in the United States have adopted energy efficiency resource standards (EERS) that specify absolute or per¬centage reductions in energy use relative to business as usual. We examine how an EERS compares to policies oriented to meeting objectives, such as reducing greenhouse gas...

Promoting energy efficiency (EE) has become a leading policy response to greenhouse gas emissions, energy dependence, and the cost of new generators and transmission lines. Such policies present numerous puzzles. Electricity prices below marginal production costs could warrant EE policies if EE...

For a host of economic, geopolitical, and environmental reasons, the security of energy supplies has moved to the forefront of U.S. policy concerns. Here, I address the extent to which the U.S. electricity sector is affected by these factors and, in turn, whether increased electricity...

Recent efforts to site renewable energy projects have provoked as much, if not more, opposition than conventional energy projects. Because renewable energy resources are often located in sensitive and isolated environments, such as pristine mountain ranges or coastal waters, siting these...

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (Assembly Bill 32) requires the state to reduce aggregate greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. One of the challenges California faces is how the state should regulate the electricity sector. About 80 percent of the state’s electricity...

Among the many complex issues of technology, governance, and market design affecting the electricity sector, climate policy has become dominant. From the perspective of a nonspecialist looking at this changing dominance, a quiz illuminates some of the peculiar uses of language one can find in...

A behavioural model of crime is developed and applied to panel data on the number of crimes and clear-ups for the 53 police districts in Norway for the period 1970-78. Data on both total crime and on 12 different types of crime is employed. The model consists of behavioural relations of the...

We develop an econometric model for firm exit, using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) as a starting point. According to SDP, the value of an operating firm can be written as the sum of (i) the net present value of continuing production if the firm is committed to a future exit date, and (ii)...

How do firms differ, and why do they differ even within narrowly defined industries? Using evidence from six high-tech, manufacturing industries covering a 24-year period, we show that differences in sales, materials, labor costs and capital across firms can largely be summarized by a single,...

How do firms differ, and why do they differ even within narrowly defined industries? Using evidence from a new panel data set for four high-tech, manufacturing industries covering a 10-year period, we show how differences in sales, materials, labor costs and capital across firms can be...