1,720,959 research outputs found
Mixes of policy instruments for full decarbonisation by 2050
No full textThe present thesis studies climate policy design. It focuses on decarbonising energy systems thanks to combinations of policy instruments rather than stand-alone carbon pricing. Indeed, virtually eliminating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy by 2050 was found to require an extremely high carbon price by several authors, including ourselves - much higher than seems politically feasible. Thanks to supporting measures such as, e.g. subsidies and prescriptions, instrument mixes hold the promise of reaching this goal with a much lower carbon price. The dissertation assesses the performance of various instrument mixes with a diversity of methods.
We begin with a review of the international literature on packages of climate policy instruments. On this basis, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings for resorting to a plurality of policy measures and propose candidate policy tools adapted to specific decarbonisation levers and barriers in each sector. We find that shortcomings of stand-alone instruments may often be alleviated by thought-through combinations of measures, although trade-offs are inevitable. Desirable instrument mixes are found to vary between sectors, and typically include some level of carbon pricing.
One reason why simulation models featuring economic feedback effects require an extremely high carbon price to induce deep decarbonisation is that they employ constant elasticity of substitution (CES) functions to represent technological diffusion. Hence, we develop an alternative form based on the logistic distribution. After investigating its properties analytically, we implement the novel specification in key energy nests of our computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework. We show that model convergence is improved under the logistic form and that the required carbon price to induce deep decarbonisation is significantly reduced compared to the standard CES version.
The augmented CGE framework with logistic demand functions allows us to simulate decarbonisation pathways compatible with Switzerland's 2050 emissions target. Further, we introduce energy-specific capital with explicit investment vintages in key sectors of the model such as to represent novel policy measures on top of carbon pricing. Four strategically designed instrument mixes are employed as case studies to highlight trade-offs implied by differentiated instrument stringencies. We find that implementing additional measures reduces the carbon price needed to reach a set target, but that static and dynamic trade-offs remain between various macroeconomic indicators and the breakdown of non-abated emissions.
One motive for implementing instrument mixes instead of stand-alone carbon pricing is greater acceptability. Therefore, we administered a survey to a representative sample of Swiss residents to elicit social preferences for climate policy design toward net zero in Switzerland. An innovative feature of the survey is that it let respondents choose stringency levels of their favourite policy instruments via an interactive calculator. We find evidence of differentiated preference structures across sectors and an inclination towards mixes rather than stand-alone measures. Our regression models show that the language region, the number of cars in the household as well as the perceived danger of climate change are key determinants of preferences.LEUR
Technological substitution under climate-neutral pathways
No full textAchieving climate neutrality will require clean alternatives to entirely replace fossil technologies in most economic sectors. However, standard Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) frameworks, which are widely used to analyse climate policies and rely on nested Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) functions, are not well suited for simulating the full technological substitution implicit in deep decarbonization scenarios. This study presents an alternative modelling procedure, based on the logistic distribution, to overcome the “stickiness” of technological diffusion under CES functional forms. Deep decarbonization scenarios are simulated with a large-scale recursive-dynamic international CGE model to illustrate the advantages of the suggested approach.LEUR
Input factor substitution under climate-neutral pathways
No full textAchieving climate neutrality will require clean alternatives to entirely replace fossil technologies in most economic sectors. However, standard Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) frameworks, which are widely used to analyse climate policies and rely on nested Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) functions, are not well suited for simulating the full technological substitution implicit in deep decarbonization scenarios. This study presents an alternative modelling procedure, based on the logistic distribution, to overcome the “stickiness” of technological diffusion under CES functional forms. Deep decarbonization scenarios are simulated with a large-scale recursive-dynamic international CGE model to illustrate the advantages of the suggested approach.LEUR
Mixes of Policy Instruments for the Full Decarbonisation of Energy Systems: A Review
No full textStand-alone carbon pricing is still predominantly advanced as the policy instrument of choice for abating greenhouse gas emissions, although it has enjoyed limited support in practice. Against this background, the current paper investigates whether combinations of climate policy measures constitute a promising avenue for reaching zero emissions in the power, transport, buildings, and industry sectors. Adopting a sectoral approach, we review the international literature on instrument mixes and consolidate previous findings according to four widely employed evaluation criteria, namely environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, social equity, and political feasibility. The performance of mixes along these dimensions is critically assessed by studying the inter-relationships between decarbonisation levers, decarbonisation barriers, and policy instrument characteristics. Our analysis suggests that carefully designed combinations of measures may perform better than stand-alone instruments in many instances, although trade-offs between policy objectives are inevitable. We show evidence that desirable instrument mixes should be tailored to the characteristics of targeted agents and technologies, but argue that some level of carbon pricing typically offers high potential for synergies with complementary measures in all sectors. The study focuses on Switzerland for illustrative purposes, yet the policy implications are far-reaching and drawn from experiences across Europe and North America
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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