This paper investigates the impact of alternative environmental policy instruments on technological innovations aiming to improve energy-efficiency in buildings. The empirical analysis focuses on three main types of policy instruments, namely regulatory energy standards in buildings codes,...

This paper applies the Directed Technical Change (DTC) framework to study improvements in the efficiency of energy use. We present a theoretical model which (1) shows that the demand for energy is shifted down by innovations in energy intensive sectors and (2) highlights the drivers of...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of energy efficiency in fossil fuel electricity generation across 28 OECD countries over the period 1981-2006, with particular attention to the role played by technological development and the availability of energy efficient...

Traditional large appliances absorb a large share of residential electricity consumption and represent important targets of energy policy strategies aimed at achieving energy security. Despite being characterized by rather mature technologies, this group of appliances still offers large...

International diffusion of energy-saving technologies has received considerable attention in recent energy and climate economics studies. As a helpful methodological complement to the existing large-scale CGE/IAM-based modelling for energy and climate policy studies, this paper contributes to a...

We develop an endogenous growth model with capital, labor and energy as production factors and three productivity variables that measure accumulated innovations for energy production, energy savings, and neutral growth. All markets are complete and perfect, except for research, for which we...

This econometric study assesses the efficiency of the income tax credit system implemented in France in 2005 on households' retrofitting investment decisions, focusing on insulation measures. A logit model with random individual effects is estimated using an unbalanced panel of 23,879 households...

Nearly all the macroeconomic literature on environmental policies deals with taxes and tradable permits. A policy instrument that still needs to be looked at is a switch in government expenditure away from environmentally-damaging goods, in particular fossil fuels, and toward resource- and...