Poland is the largest hard coal and second largest lignite producer in the EU, generating around 80 percent of its electricity from coal. Resistance to a reduction in coal production and consumption comes from various actors, namely, coal corporations, unions, parts of civil society and the...

For resource-rich countries, diversification is claimed to represent a strategy for reducing resource curse problems. This, however, depends on whether diversification has a positive effect on the country's institutions. While there is a lot of evidence that exports of oil have a negative impact...

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...

This communication displays some of our on-going research on the incompleteness of China's advances toward “best practice” in policy-making and institution-building for renewables. In particular, this paper: (1) summarizes how Chinese policies and institutions for the deployment of renewable...

Prominent contributions to the resource curse literature suggest weak governance and corruption are important factors behind the wide welfare variations observed among oil producing countries. How weak governance and corruption influence revenue management and expenditure decisions, as well as...

Globally, 1.5 billion people lack access to electricity and nearly 3 billion lack access to modern cooking energy options. Of the world’s “energy poor”, 95% are in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Within Asia, almost 80% of electricity-deprived and 86% of biomass-dependent populations are in...

Investing in smart grid infrastructure is a key enabler for the transition to low carbon energy systems. Recent work has characterised the costs and benefits of individual “smart” investments. The political economy of the UK electricity system, however, has co-evolved such that there is a...