No abstract

Since 2007, US coal-fired electricity generation has declined by a stunning 25 percent. Detailed daily unit-level data is used to examine the joint impact of natural gas prices and wind generation on coal-fired generation and emissions, with a focus on the interaction between gas prices and wind. This interaction is found to be significant. Marginal responses of coal-fired generation to natural gas prices (wind) in 2013 were larger, sometimes much larger, than the counterfactual with 2008 wind generation (gas prices). Additionally, these factors jointly account for the vast majority of the observed decline in generation and emissions. (JEL L94, L95, Q35, Q38, Q42, Q53)

Wind power has the potential to reduce emissions associated with conventional electricity generation. Using detailed, systemic hourly data of wind generation and emissions from plants in ERCOT (Texas), we empirically estimate the SO2, NOx and CO2 emissions offset by wind generation. Our estimation strategy implicitly captures both the marginal unit of generation displaced by wind on the electrical grid, and the marginal emissions reduction from that displaced unit. Our results also reveal substantial variation in emissions reductions, which appear to be strongly driven by differences in the generation mix. The environmental benefits from emissions reductions in ERCOT fail to cover government subsidies for wind generation.

No abstract

In open-access settings, high-quality resources are lucrative, yet fencing out potential entrants may be very costly. I examine the endogenous creation of property rights, focusing on the incentives that resource quality provides to close the commons. Analytical examples explore the incentives of locals to increase or decrease the strength of property rights conditional on how locals and nonlocals value the quality of the resource. The empirical analysis looks at a unique resource-surf breaks-and estimates the relationship between the exogenous quality of the resource (waves at the surf break) and local attempts to seize the common surf break. Using cross-sectional data on 86 surf breaks along the southern California coast, this paper finds that a 10 percent increase in quality leads to a 7-17 percent increase in the strength of property rights.