This paper estimates the returns to household income due to improved access to electricity in rural India. We examine the effect of connecting a household to the grid and the quality of electricity, defined as hours of daily supply. The analysis is based on two rounds of a representative panel...

Carbon markets devolve governance to external institutions and displace power from sovereign states. Major producers in these markets, notably China, have expressed concern about the adverse implications for national interests and sovereignty associated with selling off the rights to emit carbon...

We assess different policies for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and promoting the innovation and diffusion of renewable energy. We evaluate the relative performance of policies according to incentives provided for emissions reduction, efficiency, and other outcomes. We also assess how the...

This paper looks at speculative behavior in the international oil market. Much of the blame for oil-market turbulence has been placed on speculators, particularly hedge funds. Speculative capital has been characterized as “hot money,” with capital flows driven by “herding,”...

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (Assembly Bill 32) requires the state to reduce aggregate greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. One of the challenges California faces is how the state should regulate the electricity sector. About 80 percent of the state’s electricity...

Access to energy services is a right everyone should be entitled to. The energy sector has attracted particular attention from an economical and financial point of view (e.g. liberalization of the markets), from an environmental point of view (e.g. European energy-climate policy), but relatively...

Genuine saving is an established indicator of weak sustainable development that measures the net level of investment a country makes in produced, natural and human capital less depreciation. Maintaining this net level of investment above zero is a necessary condition for sustainable development....

We analyze the production of electricity from n power stations situated along a river in a dynamic model. Each power station's production of electricity is constrained by the quantity of water available to it (capacity constraint) as well as limitations of reservoir capacity (storage...

Given the USA`s refusal to ratify there is little hope for the Kyoto agreement on curbing CO2 emissions. This paper thus pledges for a national energy policy beyond Kyoto based on local external effects stemming from the combustion of fossil fuels. Due to varying external effects a national...