GREAT STEPHEN PEARLSTEIN COLUMN: My crazy schedule lately has made me remiss in linking to this great commentary from Stephen Pearlstein on how energy regulation needs a light touch. In his observations on the bloated energy bill proposal from the House, he says: My guess is that should these provisions be adopted, the volume of …
Green Power: Product Differentiation, Or Subsidy Boondoggle?
This Philadelphia Inquirer article points out some really important things about green power: people are willing to pay more for it, yet it also receives government subsidies. I think offering customers the choice of green power is a valuable improvement on the regulated service offerings that utilities typically present to their (captive) customers. It illustrates …
Green Power: Product Differentiation, Or Subsidy Boondoggle? Read More »
Power Security
Business Week recently ran an article on power grid cybersecurity. Security is one reason why regulation based on natural monopoly theory, which contends that duplication of infrastructure is unnecessarily wasteful, overlooks the benefits of redundant systems. Redundancy need not mean duplicate grid infrastructures, but can involve substituting other means of getting power, such as distributed …
Economic Evolution
While we’re at Tech Central Station, this great article by Pete Geddes on economic evolution deserves a read. Geddes hits on a theme that is a core component of my work — thinking of the economy as an organic system instead of as a mechanistic system. Like biological systems, economic life evolves as people and …
The Elastic Economy
Arnold Kling’s superb Tech Central Station article on the elastic economy makes a lot of very important points, and ties up quite a few conceptual loose ends into a neat analysis. Kling argues that over the past 50 years the economy has become more elastic, more robust, and better able to adjust to unanticipated changes. …
In doing some fact checking for an article on the FERC staff report on western energy markets, I recently rediscovered this good Fortune article about wash trades and the value of energy trading. The article does a nice job of communicating that wash trades can be used as a tool for market manipulation, but that …
In doing some fact checking for an article on the FERC staff report on western energy markets, I recently rediscovered this good Fortune article about wash trades and the value of energy trading. The article does a nice job of communicating that wash trades can be used as a tool for market manipulation, but that …
In doing some fact checking for an article on the FERC staff report on western energy markets, I recently rediscovered this good Fortune article about wash trades and the value of energy trading. The article does a nice job of communicating that wash trades can be used as a tool for market manipulation, but that …
In doing some fact checking for an article on the FERC staff report on western energy markets, I recently rediscovered this good Fortune article about wash trades and the value of energy trading. The article does a nice job of communicating that wash trades can be used as a tool for market manipulation, but that …