IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeeman/v90y2018icp78-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emissions reductions or green booms? General equilibrium effects of a renewable portfolio standard

Author

Listed:
  • Bento, Antonio M.
  • Garg, Teevrat
  • Kaffine, Daniel

Abstract

Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are commonly promoted as a policy tool to reduce emissions associated with fossil generation, while also stimulating development of local renewable resource endowments. We develop a general equilibrium model of an RPS policy that captures key features such as a fixed factor renewable endowment, substitution across sectors of the economy, and endogenous price responses. We analytically decompose the effects of an RPS into a) a substitution effect, b) an output-tax effect, and c) an output effect. We show that an increase in the RPS can either deliver large resource booms or large emissions savings but not both. Our framework can translate different renewable resource endowments and pre-existing standards across states into economic and environmental impacts to inform current renewable energy and climate policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Bento, Antonio M. & Garg, Teevrat & Kaffine, Daniel, 2018. "Emissions reductions or green booms? General equilibrium effects of a renewable portfolio standard," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 78-100.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:90:y:2018:i:c:p:78-100
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2018.05.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009506961730774X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.05.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Lucija Muehlenbachs & Elisheba Spiller & Christopher Timmins, 2015. "The Housing Market Impacts of Shale Gas Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3633-3659, December.
    2. James B. Bushnell & Stephen P. Holland & Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel, 2017. "Strategic Policy Choice in State-Level Regulation: The EPA's Clean Power Plan," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 57-90, May.
    3. Jacobsen, Grant D. & Kotchen, Matthew J. & Vandenbergh, Michael P., 2012. "The behavioral response to voluntary provision of an environmental public good: Evidence from residential electricity demand," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 946-960.
    4. Fell, Harrison & Li, Shanjun & Paul, Anthony, 2014. "A new look at residential electricity demand using household expenditure data," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 37-47.
    5. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1989. "Tax policy, asset prices, and growth : A general equilibrium analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 265-296, April.
    6. Arnold C. Harberger, 1962. "The Incidence of the Corporation Income Tax," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70, pages 215-215.
    7. Stephen P. Holland & Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel, 2009. "Greenhouse Gas Reductions under Low Carbon Fuel Standards?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 106-146, February.
    8. Don Fullerton & Garth Heutel, 2010. "The General Equilibrium Incidence of Environmental Mandates," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 64-89, August.
    9. Alberini, Anna & Gans, Will & Velez-Lopez, Daniel, 2011. "Residential consumption of gas and electricity in the U.S.: The role of prices and income," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 870-881, September.
    10. Lawrence H. Goulder & Marc A. C. Hafstead & Roberton C. Williams III, 2016. "General Equilibrium Impacts of a Federal Clean Energy Standard," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 186-218, May.
    11. Verdolini, Elena & Vona, Francesco & Popp, David, 2018. "Bridging the gap: Do fast-reacting fossil technologies facilitate renewable energy diffusion?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 242-256.
    12. Thomas P. Lyon & Haitao Yin, 2010. "Why Do States Adopt Renewable Portfolio Standards?: An Empirical Investigation," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 133-158.
    13. Palmer, Karen & Burtraw, Dallas, 2005. "Cost-effectiveness of renewable electricity policies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 873-894, November.
    14. Bento, Antonio M. & Jacobsen, Mark, 2007. "Ricardian rents, environmental policy and the `double-dividend' hypothesis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 17-31, January.
    15. Fullerton, Don & Heutel, Garth, 2007. "The general equilibrium incidence of environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 571-591, April.
    16. Holland, Stephen P., 2012. "Emissions taxes versus intensity standards: Second-best environmental policies with incomplete regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 375-387.
    17. Arthur van Benthem & Kenneth Gillingham & James Sweeney, 2008. "Learning-by-Doing and the Optimal Solar Policy in California," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 131-152.
    18. A. Lans Bovenberg & Lawrence H. Goulder & Derek J. Gurney, 2005. "Efficiency Costs of Meeting Industry-Distributional Constraints Under Environmental Permits and Taxes," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 950-970, Winter.
    19. Richard Schmalensee, 2012. "Evaluating Policies to Increase Electricity Generation from Renewable Energy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 6(1), pages 45-64.
    20. Helfand, Gloria E, 1991. "Standards versus Standards: The Effects of Different Pollution Restrictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 622-634, June.
    21. 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.
    22. Alberini, Anna & Gans, Will & Velez-Lopez, Daniel, 2011. "Residential Consumption of Gas and Electricity in the U.S.: The Role of Prices and Income," Sustainable Development Papers 99637, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    23. Lapan, Harvey & Moschini, GianCarlo, 2012. "Second-best biofuel policies and the welfare effects of quantity mandates and subsidies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 224-241.
    24. Grant D. Jacobsen & Dominic P. Parker, 2016. "The Economic Aftermath of Resource Booms: Evidence from Boomtowns in the American West," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 1092-1128, June.
    25. Daniel Kaffine & Christopher Worley, 2010. "The Windy Commons?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 47(2), pages 151-172, October.
    26. Steffen Jenner, Gabriel Chan, Rolf Frankenberger, and Mathias Gabel, 2012. "What Drives States to Support Renewable Energy?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    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. Wencheng Yu & Shaobo Liu & Lili Ding, 2021. "Efficiency Evaluation and Selection Strategies for Green Portfolios under Different Risk Appetites," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Bistline, John & Santen, Nidhi & Young, David, 2019. "The economic geography of variable renewable energy and impacts of trade formulations for renewable mandates," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 79-96.
    3. Ying, Zhou & Xin-gang, Zhao & Lei, Xu, 2022. "Supply side incentive under the Renewable Portfolio Standards: A perspective of China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 505-518.
    4. Rudik, Ivan, 2018. "Tradable credit markets for intensity standards," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 202-215.
    5. Don Fullerton & Chi L. Ta, 2022. "What Determines Effectiveness of Renewable Energy Standards? General Equilibrium Analytical Model and Empirical Analysis," NBER Working Papers 29783, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Zhu, Chaoping & Fan, Ruguo & Lin, Jinchai, 2020. "The impact of renewable portfolio standard on retail electricity market: A system dynamics model of tripartite evolutionary game," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    7. Bialek, Sylwia & Ünel, Burçin, 2022. "Efficiency in wholesale electricity markets: On the role of externalities and subsidies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Fan, Jing-Li & Wang, Jia-Xing & Hu, Jia-Wei & Yang, Yang & Wang, Yu, 2021. "Will China achieve its renewable portfolio standard targets? An analysis from the perspective of supply and demand," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Armenia Androniceanu & Irina Georgescu & Ionuț Nica & Nora Chiriță, 2023. "A Comprehensive Analysis of Renewable Energy Based on Integrating Economic Cybernetics and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model—The Case of Romania," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-28, August.
    10. Wu, Geng & Wang, Haojing & Wu, Qingguo, 2020. "Wind power development in the Belt and Road area of Xinjiang, China: Problems and solutions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Nandeeta Neerunjun & Hubert Stahn, 2023. "Renewable energy support: pre-announced policies and (in)-efficiency," AMSE Working Papers 2335, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    12. Ino, Hiroaki & Matsumura, Toshihiro, 2021. "Promoting green or restricting gray? An analysis of green portfolio standards," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. Wang, Ge & Zhang, Qi & Li, Yan & Mclellan, Benjamin C. & Pan, Xunzhang, 2019. "Corrective regulations on renewable energy certificates trading: Pursuing an equity-efficiency trade-off," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 970-982.
    14. Wang, Delu & Li, Chunxiao & Mao, Jinqi & Yang, Qing, 2023. "What affects the implementation of the renewable portfolio standard? An analysis of the four-party evolutionary game," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 250-261.
    15. Amiri-Pebdani, Sima & Alinaghian, Mahdi & Khosroshahi, Hossein, 2023. "A game theoretic approach for time-of-use pricing with considering renewable portfolio standard effects and investment in energy storage technologies under government interventions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    16. Rezana Balla, 2020. "Digitalization of Financial Services in Albania Under Restricted Measures Covid-19," European Journal of Marketing and Economics Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 3, July -Dec.

    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. Becker, Jonathon M., 2023. "Tradable performance standards in a dynamic context," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Ino, Hiroaki & Matsumura, Toshihiro, 2021. "Promoting green or restricting gray? An analysis of green portfolio standards," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    3. Derek Lemoine, 2017. "Escape from Third-Best: Rating Emissions for Intensity Standards," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 789-821, August.
    4. Mar Reguant, 2018. "The Efficiency and Sectoral Distributional Implications of Large-Scale Renewable Policies," NBER Working Papers 24398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Harrison Fell & Daniel Kaffine & Daniel Steinberg, 2017. "Energy Efficiency and Emissions Intensity Standards," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(S1), pages 201-226.
    6. Don Fullerton & Garth Heutel, 2010. "The General Equilibrium Incidence of Environmental Mandates," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 64-89, August.
    7. Mbéa Bell & Sylvain Dessy, 2017. "Market Power and Instrument Choice in Climate Policy," Cahiers de recherche 1704, Centre de recherche sur les risques, les enjeux économiques, et les politiques publiques.
    8. Christoph Böhringer & Carolyn Fischer & Nicholas Rivers, 2023. "Intensity-Based Rebating of Emission Pricing Revenues," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 1059-1089.
    9. Jean-Pierre Amigues & Ujjayant Chakravorty & Gilles Lafforgue & Michel Moreaux, 2022. "Comparing Volume and Blend Renewable Energy Mandates under a Carbon Budget," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 147, pages 51-78.
    10. Don Fullerton & Erich Muehlegger, 2017. "Who Bears the Economic Costs of Environmental Regulations?," NBER Working Papers 23677, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Paolo Giorgio Garella & Maria Teresa Trentinaglia, 2019. "Carbon Tax, Emission Standards, and Carbon Leak Under Price Competition," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 941-964, April.
    12. Fell, Harrison & Linn, Joshua, 2013. "Renewable electricity policies, heterogeneity, and cost effectiveness," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 688-707.
    13. Wichsinee Wibulpolprasert, 2016. "Optimal Environmental Policies and Renewable Energy Investment in Electricity Markets," PIER Discussion Papers 47, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Alejandro Caparrós & Richard E. Just & David Zilberman, 2015. "Dynamic Relative Standards versus Emission Taxes in a Putty-Clay Model," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 277-308.
    15. Gabriel E. Lade & C.-Y. Cynthia Lin Lawell, 2021. "The Design of Renewable Fuel Mandates and Cost Containment Mechanisms," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(2), pages 213-247, June.
    16. Jessoe, Katrina & Rapson, David & Smith, Jeremy B., 2014. "Towards understanding the role of price in residential electricity choices: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 191-208.
    17. Fullerton, Don & Karney, Daniel H., 2018. "Multiple pollutants, co-benefits, and suboptimal environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 52-71.
    18. Rausch Sebastian & Metcalf Gilbert E. & Reilly John M & Paltsev Sergey, 2010. "Distributional Implications of Alternative U.S. Greenhouse Gas Control Measures," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-46, July.
    19. James B. Bushnell & Stephen P. Holland & Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel, 2017. "Strategic Policy Choice in State-Level Regulation: The EPA's Clean Power Plan," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 57-90, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Renewable portfolio standards; Emissions; Resource booms; General equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q33 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Resource Booms (Dutch Disease)
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:jeeman:v:90:y:2018:i:c:p:78-100. 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/inca/622870 .

    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.