IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-17-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating the Learning-by-Doing Theory of Long-Run Oil, Gas, and Coal Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Ritchie, Justin
  • Dowlatabadi, Hadi

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Energy and climate policy studies with a long-term outlook need to anticipate potential developments in technology and the temporal nature of today’s resource-reserve definitions for oil, gas and coal. Accordingly, economic concepts of learning formulated from research on manufacturing industries inspire a common approach to modeling technological change in hydrocarbon energy resource production. This theory expects future costs of fossil energy supply to benefit from a cumulative learning effect which results from ongoing extraction. With three decades of data since the initial formulation of this theory by Rogner (1997), some key regions of conventional oil and gas production have matured. Fresh data on industry cost trends are now available, allowing for a closer examination and validation of whether this learning model hypothesis is relevant for long-run cost projections. Empirical cost and productivity data challenge the broad application of a learning model to the total geologic occurrences of fossil energy resources. We find that oil and gas industry operating costs indicate a learning effect, but capital expenditures do not. Coal resource-reserve dynamics have not developed as anticipated. Nordhaus (2009) suggests technological change models of energy supply calculated with a learning curve will consistently overestimate productivity gains, producing biased cost estimates of future technologies. This paper considers the Rogner (1997) learning-by-extracting model for fossil energy supply as a specific case of Nordhaus’ argument.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritchie, Justin & Dowlatabadi, Hadi, 2017. "Evaluating the Learning-by-Doing Theory of Long-Run Oil, Gas, and Coal Economics," RFF Working Paper Series 17-14, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-17-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rff.org/documents/1771/RFF-WP-17-14.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James D. Hamilton, 2012. "Oil Prices, Exhaustible Resources, and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 17759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Toshihiko Masui & Kenichi Matsumoto & Yasuaki Hijioka & Tsuguki Kinoshita & Toru Nozawa & Sawako Ishiwatari & Etsushi Kato & P. Shukla & Yoshiki Yamagata & Mikiko Kainuma, 2011. "An emission pathway for stabilization at 6 Wm −2 radiative forcing," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 109(1), pages 59-76, November.
    3. Adelman, M A, 1990. "Mineral Depletion, with Special Reference to Petroleum," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(1), pages 1-10, February.
    4. Wang, Jianliang & Feng, Lianyong & Davidsson, Simon & Höök, Mikael, 2013. "Chinese coal supply and future production outlooks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 204-214.
    5. K. J. Arrow, 1971. "The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: F. H. Hahn (ed.), Readings in the Theory of Growth, chapter 11, pages 131-149, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Ritchie, Justin & Dowlatabadi, Hadi, 2017. "The 1000 GtC coal question: Are cases of vastly expanded future coal combustion still plausible?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 16-31.
    7. William D. Nordhaus, 2014. "The Perils of the Learning Model for Modeling Endogenous Technological Change," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    8. M.A. Adelman and G.C. Watkins, 2008. "Reserve Prices and Mineral Resource Theory," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 1-16.
    9. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dosi, Giovanni & Grazzi, Marco & Mathew, Nanditha, 2017. "The cost-quantity relations and the diverse patterns of “learning by doing”: Evidence from India," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1873-1886.
    2. Ritchie, Justin & Dowlatabadi, Hadi, 2017. "The 1000 GtC coal question: Are cases of vastly expanded future coal combustion still plausible?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 16-31.
    3. Amavilah, Voxi Heinrich, 2014. "Human Knowledge and a Commonsensical Measure of Human Capital: A Proposal," MPRA Paper 57670, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ritchie, Justin & Dowlatabadi, Hadi, 2017. "Why do climate change scenarios return to coal?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 1276-1291.
    5. Rao, B. Bhaskara, 2010. "Estimates of the steady state growth rates for selected Asian countries with an extended Solow model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 46-53, January.
    6. van de Klundert, T.C.M.J. & Smulders, J.A., 1991. "Reconstructing growth theory : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 19355c51-17eb-4d5d-aa66-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Carine Nourry, 2012. "Dasgupta, D.: Modern growth theory," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 105(1), pages 97-100, January.
    8. Arun Natarajan Hariharan & Arindam Biswas, 2020. "A Critical review of the Indian knowledge‐based industry location policy against its theoretical arguments," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), pages 431-454, June.
    9. Johannes W. Fedderke & John M. Luiz, 2005. "Does Human Generate Social and Institutional Capital? Exploring Evidence From Time Series Data in a Middle Income Country," Working Papers 029, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    10. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 1996. "The Poverty of Nations: A Quantitative Exploration," NBER Working Papers 5414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Andreja Benkovic & Juan Felipe Mejía, 2008. "Tourism as a driver of economic development: The Colombian experience," Documentos de Trabajo CIEF 10630, Universidad EAFIT.
    12. Wilson, E.J. & Chaudhri, D.P., 2000. "Endogeneity, Knowledge and Dynamics of Long Run Capitalist Economic Growth," Economics Working Papers wp00-03, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    13. Philippe Michel & Antoine d'Autume, 1993. "Hystérésis et piège du sous-développement dans un modèle de croissance endogène," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 44(2), pages 431-450.
    14. Dekle, Robert & Eaton, Jonathan, 1999. "Agglomeration and Land Rents: Evidence from the Prefectures," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 200-214, September.
    15. Marconi, G. & de Grip, A., 2014. "Education and growth with learning by doing," ROA Research Memorandum 010, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    16. Meier, Volker & Schiopu, Ioana, 2015. "Optimal higher education enrollment and productivity externalities in a two-sector model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-13.
    17. Mori, Tomoya & Sakaguchi, Shosei, 2018. "Collaborative knowledge creation: Evidence from Japanese patent data," MPRA Paper 88716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. van de Klundert, Theo & Smulders, Sjak, 1995. "Strategies for Growth in a Macroeconomic Setting," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 63(4), pages 388-411, December.
    19. ?gel de la Fuente, "undated". "Convergence Across Countries And Regions: Theory And Empirics," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 447.00, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    20. Julio Dávila, 2023. "Bequests or education," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 1039-1069, May.

    More about this item

    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:rff:dpaper:dp-17-14. 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: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    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.