December 29, 2016

Are Fuel Economy Standards Regressive?

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program was introduced in 1975 with the objective of reducing gasoline consumption. Under CAFE, automakers are required to meet a minimum sales-weighted average fuel economy for their vehicle fleets. Fuel economy standards impose costs, but who bears those costs?

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December 22, 2016

Study Shows Hydraulic Fracturing Boosts Local Economies

As hydraulic fracturing, or fracing, is poised to play an even more important role in the nation’s energy system in coming years, how can benefits at the national scale—such as lower energy prices, enhanced energy security, and lower air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions—be weighed against concerns that negative health and social impacts outweigh the economic benefits for local communities where drilling takes place?

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November 16, 2016

E2e Project Update: Evaluating Energy Efficiency Upgrades to K-12 Public Schools in California

A new working paper by Fiona Burlig, Christopher Knittel, David Rapson, Mar Reguant and Catherine Wolfram1 studies the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency investments in over 2,000 K-12 California public schools served by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).

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October 23, 2016

Transatlantic Perspectives on Energy Storage: Technology, Policy and Finance

Energy storage will play a critical role in enabling the transition to low-carbon electricity systems, providing capacity, energy, and ancillary benefits to help secure a stable and reliable power supply. But even as the technology horizon evolves, the value of different storage technologies remains uncertain.

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October 8, 2016

Lower Oil Prices and the U.S. Economy: Is This Time Different?

Between June 2014 and March 2016, the inflation-adjusted price of oil dropped by 66%, yet average U.S. economic growth accelerated only slightly from 1.8% at annual rates before the oil price decline to 2.2% thereafter. The fact that this decline in the price of oil failed to translate into faster U.S. economic growth has puzzled many observers who expected a boom in the U.S. economy.

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September 30, 2016

Efficiency and Equity in Today’s Environmental Policy

The economics rationale for environmental regulation is simple and strong: private decisions about how much to pollute lead to socially undesirable levels of pollution. We need policy to correct this flaw in markets. The question is, which policies?

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