Using data from a large, multi-country survey, this paper investigates the determinants of preferences for a completely green residential electricity system. Three important questions are addressed: (i) how much are households willing to pay to use only renewable energy? (ii) does...

This paper offers a non-technical overview of the issues involved when applying cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to hydropower, both in terms of new installations and changing existing regulatory structures. Our focus is on the conceptual and empirical problems of applying CBA to provide decision...

In this note we discuss how to treat taxes in a cost-benefit analysis (CBA). In particular we relate the shadow price of taxes in CBA to the concepts the marginal cost of public funds MCPF) and the marginal excess burden (MEB) of taxes. In particular we demonstrate that the MCPF is equal to one...

Benford's law describes how different numbers are distributed as first figures in statistics. The law states, for example, that the number 1 should be the first digit in 30.1% of cases, the figure 2 in 17.6% of the cases and the figure 9 in 4.6% of the cases. If Benford's law is violated, it may...

We provide consistent, cross-country estimates of price and income elasticity for the residential sector of 11 OECD countries. Using survey data from 2011 on annual consumption of electricity and sample-derived average electricity price, we provide country-specific price elasticity estimates and...