Building on a review of experience in the United States and the European Union, this article advances four main propositions concerning policies aimed at increasing electricity generation from renewable energy. First, who bears the short-run costs of programs to subsidize the generation of...

Building on a review of experience in the United States and the European Union, this article advances four main propositions concerning policies aimed at increasing electricity generation from renewable energy. First, who bears the short-run costs of programs to subsidize the generation of...

Government subsidies have driven rapid growth in U.S. wind and solar generation. Using data on hourly outputs and prices for 25 wind and nine solar generating plants, some results of those subsidies are studied in detail: the value of these plants' outputs, the variability of output at plant and...

This essay provides a brief overview of the evolution of the field of industrial organization from its emergence to the present, and it offers some observations about the present state of the field. While there has been considerable progress in industrial organization over time, its uphill path...

Software platforms are a critical component of the computer systems underpinning leading? edge products ranging from third? generation mobile phones to video games. After describing some key economic features of computer systems and software platforms, the paper presents case studies of personal...

This essay provides an overview of the major emissions trading programs of the past thirty years on which significant documentation exists, and draws a number of important lessons for future applications of this environmental policy instrument. References to a larger number of other emissions...

Two decades have passed since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 launched a grand experiment in market-based environmental policy: the SO2 cap-and-trade system. That system performed well but created four striking ironies. First, by creating this system to reduce SO2 emissions to curb acid...

Our analysis has important implications for banking regulators and competition authorities around the world that are looking into interchange fees for debit and credit cards. David S. Evans (Univ. of Chicago, UCL), Robert E. Litan (Kaufmann Foundation), & Richard Schmalensee (MIT).

Market definition is the first step in the assessment of market power. Richard Schmalensee (MIT)