Based on data from a representative survey among citizens in Germany during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, this paper empirically examines the acceptance of climate-oriented economic stimulus programs and several further climate policy measures. Our descriptive analysis shows no general lower...

This report contains three separate papers, each addressing selected issues concerning natural gas policy and security of gas supply in Europe. The over-arching themes are vulnerability (to supply disruptions, to supplier pricing power) and fragmentation; and measures designed to overcome them,...

This paper discusses the merits and limits of the recent European energy policy aimed at reducing carbon emissions, devoting particular attention to the European Trading System of carbon permits and to the measures that the European Union has adopted to promote renewable energy sources. From the...

Many countries have a clear policy objective of increasing their share of renewable energy sources (RESs). However, a major impediment to higher RES penetration often lies in the historically grown structures of a country's electricity sector. In Indonesia, policymakers have relied on cheap...

Unbundling of vertically integrated utilities has become an integral element in the regulation of network industries and has been implemented in many jurisdictions. The idea of separating the network, as the natural monopoly, from downstream retailing, which may be exposed to competition, is...

The movement to deregulate major industries over the past 40 years has produced large efficiency gains. However, distributional effects have been more difficult to assess. In the electricity sector, deregulation has vastly increased information available to market participants through the...

The euro area is facing crisis, while the US is not, though the overall fiscal situation and outlook is better in the euro area than in the US, and though the US faces serious state-level fiscal crises. A higher level of fiscal federalism would strengthen the euro area, but is not inevitable....

Recent asset pricing models of limits to arbitrage emphasize the role of funding conditions faced by financial intermediaries. In the US, the repo market is the key funding market. Then, the premium of on-the-run U.S. Treasury bonds should share a common component with risk premia in other...

By 2008, the Hungarian pension system has become too generous and the implied contribution rate hindered growth. When the international economic and financial crisis deprived Hungary from normal credits, its government turned to international organizations for help. The most spectacular element...

We study alternative scenarios for exiting the post-crisis fiscal and monetary accommodation using the model of Angeloni and Faia (2010), that combines a standard DSGE framework with a fragile banking sector, suitably modified and calibrated for the euro area. Credibly announced and fast fiscal...