Prospect theory holds that human beings faced with a risky bet will tend to value potential losses about twice as much as potential gains. Previous research has demonstrated that prospect theory could be sufficient to explain an energy paradox in the market for automotive fuel economy. This...

U.S. national time series data on vehicle travel by passenger cars and light trucks covering the period 1966–2007 are used to test for the existence, size and stability of the rebound effect for motor vehicle fuel efficiency on vehicle travel. The data show a statistically significant effect...

Stochastic simulation of the direct economic costs of oil dependence in an uncertain future is proposed as a useful metric of oil dependence. The market failure from which these costs arise is imperfect competition in the world oil market, chiefly as a consequence of the use of market power by...

China has been building at least 50 gigawatt (GW) of new coal-fired power plants every year since 2004. In the absence of CO2 capture ready (CCR) designs, a large fraction of new coal power plants built in the next decade could face ‘carbon lock-in’. Building on the existing engineering and...