What can institutional economics offer to analyze and shape the transformation of electricity systems towards a low-carbon future? This volume presents papers from a postgraduate research course in "Sustainability Economics and Management" in the winter term 2014/15. The introductory chapter...

We extend the theory of peak-load pricing by considering that the production with different technologies can be adjusted within their capacity at different speeds. In the established analysis, all production decisions can be made after the random variables realize. In our setting, in contrast,...

Summary Based on the observation that energy costs have been decreasing over much of the 20th century, this paper extends the Romer (1990) model of endogenous technological change to examine the impact of secular changes in energy costs on technological progress and long-run growth. The key...

Climate policies can target either the demand or the supply of fossil fuels. While demandside policies have been analyzed in the literature and applied in policy-making, supply-side policies, e.g. deposit policies, are a promising option and a recent research focus. In this paper we study...

Does climate change adaptation require that investments are designed to be more robust? What about when climate change is more uncertain? What if the climate changes faster? This decision problem is difficult if the design of the investments is irreversible for their lifetime, for instance, in...

The negotiations for a global climate agreement recognize that substantial and additional funds need to be generated for assisting adaptation in developing countries. Currently, the 2% adaptation levy (AL) on the clean development mechanism (CDM) is intended to serve this purpose under the Kyoto...

Thermoelectric power plants depend on cooling water drawn from water bodies. Low river run-off and/or high water temperatures limit a plant's production capacity. This problem may intensify with climate change. To what extent do such capacity reductions affect electricity spot markets? Who bears...

Shall investments become more robust or more short-lived if unfavorable exogeneous conditions become more uncertain? What if the investments' design is irreversible for its whole life time? Such decision problems are frequently encountered, for example in infrastructure construction. We analyze...

This study examines by which design properties international cooperation can effectively facilitate specific climate adaptation processes at the local level. First, a qualitative meta-analysis of empirical evidence from 23 cases is conducted to identify archetypal patterns of barriers and change...