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Electricity market deregulation and environmental regulation: Evidence from U.S. nuclear power

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  • Karney, Daniel H.

Abstract

Nuclear power in the United States provides substantial electricity supply and thus this study replicates the finding in Davis and Wolfram (2012) that divestiture leads to a statistically significant and economically meaningful increase in nuclear power reactor output. Divestiture is the sale of generating assets from regulated, investor-owned utilities to independent power producers with the profit motive to increase output. The divestiture effect result is robust to specification choice and testing with an extended dataset containing additional years of observations. This study also finds the new result that reactor output increases via an indirect environmental policy mechanism. The environmental regulations considered occurred contemporaneously to the divestitures and thus provides a further robustness check on the divestiture effect result.

Suggested Citation

  • Karney, Daniel H., 2019. "Electricity market deregulation and environmental regulation: Evidence from U.S. nuclear power," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:84:y:2019:i:c:s0140988319302816
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2019.104500
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Khan Rabnawaz & Kong YuSheng, 2020. "Effects of Energy Consumption on GDP: New Evidence of 24 Countries on Their Natural Resources and Production of Electricity," Ekonomika (Economics), Sciendo, vol. 99(1), pages 26-49, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nuclear power; Electricity markets; Deregulation; Environmental policy; Replication;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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