The integration of large amounts of distributed energy resources (DERs) as photovoltaic solar generation, micro-cogeneration, electric vehicles, distributed storage or demand response pose new challenges and opportunities on the power sector. In this paper, we review the current trends on: i)...

The availability of information on technology is a key factor in the innovation process. Firms that lack such information thereby face a major barrier to innovation. Yet little is known about the types of companies that lack this information. This paper examines what characterises firms that...

This study (i) compares the competence levels of the adult population in a set of OECD countries; (ii) assesses the comparative efficiency with which the education system in each country transforms schooling into competences, distinguishing by educational level, and (iii) tracks the evolution of...

This paper analyses the evolution of the European urban system from a long-term perspective (from 1300 to 1800) considering the historical data set of Bairoch et al. (1988). Using the method recently proposed by Clauset et al. (2009), a Pareto-type city size distribution (power law) is rejected...

Labor market dynamics and the expectations of finding a job are believed to be strong determinants of individuals' educational decisions. Thus, the academic performance and permanency of students in the school system are closely related to their perceptions of unemployment. The impact of high...

Although electricity losses constitute an important, but inevitable, amount of wasted resources (and a share that has to be funded), they remain one of the lesser known parts of an electricity system, and this despite the fact that the decisions of generators, transmission and distribution...

There is a growing literature looking at how men and women respond differently to competition. We contribute to this literature by studying gender differences in performance in a high-stakes and male dominated competitive environment, expert chess tournaments. Our findings show that women...

Looking at the decentralized provision of public education in a middle income country, this paper estimates the impact of local autonomy on service quality, finding large heterogeneity in the effect across different levels of local development. Colombian municipalities were assigned to...

What are the benefits of lifting structural impediments to banking the unbanked? We address this question by studying the Spanish Banking Expansion Plan 1964-1974, a program aimed at extending banking services into unbanked municipalities after decades of banking status quo. We exploit the...

Retail electricity prices have substantially increased in the last decade in the European Union (EU) as a result of different regulations, raising the concern of policy makers. The growth in the support costs for electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E) has often been singled out as a...