This paper evaluates changes in fuel procurement practices by coal- and gas-fired power plants in the United States following state-level legislation that ended cost-of-service regulation of electricity generation. I find that deregulated plants substantially reduce the price paid for coal (but...

The phasedown of coal for electricity generation is considered vital to meeting global climate targets. Many countries have pledged to stop using coal, with some as early as 2030. While the United States has no target currently in place, several states do. In this paper, we examine the...

Historically coal has offered both benefits and costs to urban areas. Benefits include coal's role in fueling industry and thus employment. The primary costs are air pollution and its impact on human health. This paper starts by using a Rosen-Roback style model to examine how differences in...

Legislation often empowers agencies to develop rules, but legal challenges may create uncertainty, thereby increasing firm costs, delaying policy objectives, and affecting externalities. This paper investigates policy uncertainty surrounding the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, estimating a...

Natural gas has replaced coal as the dominant fuel for U.S. electricity generation. However, U.S. states that regulate electric utilities have retired coal more slowly than others. We build a structural model of rate-of-return regulation during an energy transition where utilities face tradeoffs...

Japanese public pension benefits, which were distributed quarterly through February 1990 and every other month since then, induce substantial but predictable income fluctuations. The relative magnitude of the payments combined with the delay between payments yields a stronger test of the...

If a coalition of countries implements climate policies, nonparticipants tend to consume more, pollute more, and invest too little in renewable energy sources. In response, the coalition's equilibrium policy distorts trade and is not time-consistent. This paper derives conditions for when...

In a paper presented to the Royal Meteorological Society, Brodie (1905) presented a data series that presaged the modern Environmental Kuznets Curve: in the decades leading up to 1890, the number of foggy days in London rose steadily, but after 1891, the fogs began to subside. Brodie attributed...

In recent years, the share of U.S electricity generated by coal has fallen from nearly 50% to 33%. The costs of this transition are spatially concentrated, and mining states have already lost income due to the reduced demand for coal. Coal states have enacted policies to encourage local power...

While the Industrial Revolution brought economic growth, there is a long debate in economics over the costs of the pollution externalities that accompanied early industrialization. To help settle this debate, this paper introduces a new theoretically-grounded strategy for estimating the impact...