Research Papers in Economics
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The D3-Triangulation for Simplicial Deformation Algorithms for Computing Solutions of Nonlinear Equations
Full text linkGlobal CO2 Emission Reductions - the Impacts of Rising Energy Costs
No full textIn this paper, we explore how the costs of a CO2 limit are likely to vary among regions. The analysis is based on Global 2100: an analytical framework for estimating the economy-wide impacts of rising energy costs. We investigate how emissions are likely to evolve in the absence of a carbon limit, and how the regional pattern is likely to shift during the nest century. We then examine alternative strategies to limit global emissions, calculate the impacts of higher energy costs upon conventionally measured GDP, and indicate the size of the carbon tax that would be required to induce individual consumers to reduce their dependence on carbon-intensive fuels.
A Resource Whose Time Has Come? The Alberta oil Sands as an Economic Resource
No full textThe Alberta oil sands, which comprise over 170 billion barrels of proven recoverable reserves, are a resource of an order of magnitude similar to many estimates of ultimate world conventional oil reserves. Campbell Watkins maintained a long-standing emphasis on the essential economic component of any meaningful definition of the worldÕs natural resources. The fact is that the Alberta oil sands have had a very shaky economic foundation until only recently. The intention of this paper is to examine this emerging resource from an economic perspective; one, it is hoped, similar to that which Watkins evinced, in order to fully assess the extent to which the Alberta oil sands may be regarded as being no different in any meaningful way from other oil resources.
Weather Normalization andNatural Gas Regulation
No full textThe residential demand for natural gas is the subject of two recent articles in this journal.' Each used pooled time-series/cross-section data to estimate price and income elasticities as well as other relationships that determine the quantity of natural gas consumed by individual households or groups of households. Not surprisingly, among relationships other than price or income, the most important links consumption to weather conditions .2 Regulating natural gas distribution companies requires that this dependence of consumption on weather conditions be recognized and reflected in ratemaking. If it is not (or if it is recognized incorrectly) the regulator will approve prices and revenues that make expected return on utility investment either greater or smaller than allowed return.
Optimal Off-Peak Incremental Sales Rate Design in Electricity Pricing
No full textNonlinear pricing has recently become a subject of intense research in utility pricing. This research begins with the work on multipart tariffs which points out the superiority of nonlinear pricing over linear pricing and the importance of self-selection in regulatory pricing (see e.g., Brown and Sibley (1986), Faulhaber and Panzar (1977), Willig (1978) and Mirman and Sibley (1980)). That is, by providing a menu of rate options from which a ratepayer chooses what he most prefers, the utility and the ratepayers are both better off than when only one linear rate schedule is available (e.g., a non-time differentiated energy charge).
Price Convergence Across Natural Gas Fields and City Markets
No full textThis research reports the results of cointegration tests between natural gas spot prices at various production fields, pipeline hubs, and city markets. Cointegration between prices is evidence that spatial arbitrage is enforcing tile law of one price across market locations. The results show that prices at certain city markets, Chicago and to a lesser went California, are cointegrated with prices at field markets. However, the prices at most other locations do not move in step with gas prices in the field markets. Customer access to pipeline transportation, or competitive bypass, may explain why prices at some city markets are more responsive to production field prices than others.
Information and Bidding Behavior by Major Oil Companies for Outer Continental Shelf Leases: Is the joint Bidding Ban Justified?
No full textThe Energy Policy and Conservation Act (PL 94-163), signed into law in December 1975, forbade oil companies that produced the equivalent of 1.6 million barrels of oil per day (mbd) worldwide from bidding jointly for outer continental shelf (OCS) leases. The U.S. Department of the Interior adopted regulations to that effect. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendment of 1978 (PL 95-372) modified the 1975 law. This amendment gives the Secretary of the Interior the power to conduct periodic reviews of production rates by petroleum producers and to ban from joint bidding any person or firm that produced, during a prior six-month period specified by the secretary, an average of 1.6 mbd.
