January 2006

The Palestinian Elections Through An Nie Lens

Lynne Kiesling When I heard this morning about the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections, my initial reaction was what I characterize as a new institutional economics idea. One of the reasons why transparent democratic governance institutions lead to social stability (as opposed to stasis) and economic growth is that the combination of the transparency …

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International Energy: What Is Going On?

Lynne Kiesling Hmmm … another Western-looking former Soviet satellite experiences disruptions to their natural gas supplies. This time it’s Georgia, not Ukraine, but one has to wonder if this is a coincidence. Certainly Georgia President Saakashvili sees dastardly intentions behind the incident: Accusations by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that Russia is to blame for the …

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“Dispatchable” As a Product Characteristic, and How to Deal With It in Markets

Lynne Kiesling Derek’s comment about wind power on my previous post mentions that wind power is not “dispatchable”. This characteristic refers to the extent to which the resource is available to the system operator, who is responsible for the real-time physical balancing of the network, when striving to achieve that balance. Dispatchability has been a …

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