IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v39y2011i7p3954-3965.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy efficiency and renewables policies: Promoting efficiency or facilitating monopsony?

Author

Listed:
  • Brennan, Timothy J.

Abstract

The cliché in the electricity sector, the "cheapest power plant is the one we don't build," neglects the benefits of the energy that plant would generate. That economy-wide perspective need not apply in considering benefits to only consumers if not building that plant was the exercise of monopsony power. A regulator maximizing consumer welfare may need to avoid rationing demand at monopsony prices. Subsidizing energy efficiency to reduce electricity demand at the margin can solve that problem, if energy efficiency and electricity use are substitutes. Renewable energy subsidies, percentage use standards, or feed in tariffs may also serve monopsony as well with sufficient inelasticity in fossil fuel electricity supply. We may not observe these effects if the regulator can set price as well as quantity, lacks buyer-side market power, or is legally precluded from denying generators a reasonable return on capital. Nevertheless, the possibility of monopsony remains significant in light of the debate as to whether antitrust enforcement should maximize consumer welfare or total welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Brennan, Timothy J., 2011. "Energy efficiency and renewables policies: Promoting efficiency or facilitating monopsony?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 3954-3965, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:39:y:2011:i:7:p:3954-3965
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421510007366
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dennis W. Carlton, 2007. "Does Antitrust Need to be Modernized?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 155-176, Summer.
    2. Russell Pittman, 2007. "Consumer Surplus as the Appropriate Standard for Antitrust Enforcement," EAG Discussions Papers 200709, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    3. Russ Pittman, 2007. "Consumer Surplus as the Appropriate Standard for Antitrust Enforcement," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 3.
    4. Kenneth Heyer, 2006. "Welfare Standards and Merger Analysis: Why not the Best?," EAG Discussions Papers 200608, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    5. Peltzman, Sam, 1976. "Toward a More General Theory of Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 211-240, August.
    6. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    7. Ken Heyer, 2006. "Welfare Standards and Merger Analysis: Why Not the Best?," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 2.
    8. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    9. Brennan, Timothy J., 2010. "Optimal energy efficiency policies and regulatory demand-side management tests: How well do they match?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 3874-3885, August.
    10. Carolyn Fischer, 2010. "Renewable Portfolio Standards: When Do They Lower Energy Prices?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 101-120.
    11. Richard J. Gilbert & David M. Newbery, 1994. "The Dynamic Efficiency of Regulatory Constitutions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(4), pages 538-554, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brennan, Timothy J. & Palmer, Karen L., 2013. "Energy efficiency resource standards: Economics and policy," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 58-68.
    2. Laura Abrardi, 2019. "Behavioral barriers and the energy efficiency gap: a survey of the literature," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(1), pages 25-43, March.
    3. Timothy J. Brennan, 2013. "Energy Efficiency Policy Puzzles," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    4. Brennan, Timothy J., 2011. "Energy Efficiency Policy: Surveying the Puzzles," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-27, Resources for the Future.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy J. Brennan, 2009. "Energy Efficiency: Efficiency or Monopsony?," UMBC Economics Department Working Papers 09-110, UMBC Department of Economics, revised 01 May 2009.
    2. Yannis Katsoulacos & Eleni Metsiou & David Ulph, 2016. "Optimal Substantive Standards for Competition Authorities," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 273-295, September.
    3. Katalin Katona & Marcel Canoy, 2013. "Welfare standards in hospital mergers," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(4), pages 573-586, August.
    4. Thomas Jeitschko & Nanyun Zhang, 2011. "Patent Pools and Product Development," Working Papers 2011-02, Towson University, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2011.
    5. Russell Pittman, 2007. "Consumer Surplus as the Appropriate Standard for Antitrust Enforcement," EAG Discussions Papers 200709, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    6. Ghosh, Arghya & Morita, Hodaka, 2012. "Competitor collaboration and product distinctiveness," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 137-152.
    7. Gary D. Libecap, 2016. "Coasean Bargaining to Address Environmental Externalities," NBER Working Papers 21903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Oliver Budzinski & Jürgen-Peter Kretschmer, 2009. "Horizontal Mergers, Involuntary Unemployment, and Welfare," Working Papers 90/09, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Sociology, Environmental and Business Economics.
    9. Marc Fusaro & Richard Ericson, 2010. "The Welfare Economics of “Bounce Protection” Programs," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 55-73, March.
    10. Wallner, Klaus, 2002. "Implicit contracts between regulator and industry: protection and deregulation in Japanese casualty insurance," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 379-400, December.
    11. Fiammetta Gordon & David Squires, 2008. "The Deterrent Effect of UK Competition Enforcement," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 411-432, December.
    12. Hochman, Gal & Zilberman, David, 2021. "Optimal environmental taxation in response to an environmentally-unfriendly political challenger," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    13. Pingping Shan & Guofu Tan & Simon Wilkie & Michael Williams, 2012. "China’s Anti-Monopoly Law: What is the Welfare Standard?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(1), pages 31-52, August.
    14. Dennis Carlton & Ken Heyer, 2007. "The Year in Review: Economics at the Antitrust Division, 2006–2007," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 31(2), pages 121-137, September.
    15. Dennis W. Carlton & Ken Heyer, 2008. "Appropriate Antitrust Policy Towards Single-Firm Conduct," EAG Discussions Papers 200802, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    16. Jarig Sinderen & Ron Kemp, 2008. "The Economic Effect Of Competition Law Enforcement: The Case Of The Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 365-385, December.
    17. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    18. Hahn Robert, 2010. "Designing Smarter Regulation with Improved Benefit-Cost Analysis," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, July.
    19. McShane, Michael K. & Cox, Larry A. & Butler, Richard J., 2010. "Regulatory competition and forbearance: Evidence from the life insurance industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 522-532, March.
    20. Kenneth Heyer, 2014. "Consumer Welfare and the Legacy of Robert Bork," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 19-32.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:39:y:2011:i:7:p:3954-3965. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.