Thermoelectric power plants depend on cooling water drawn from water bodies. Low river run-off and/or high water temperatures limit a plant's production capacity. This problem may intensify with climate change. To what extent do such capacity reductions affect electricity spot markets? Who bears...

International environmental agreements have had varying success in the past; the theoretical literature on international environmental agreements (IEAs) explains why freeriding is so common. This paper allows for two strategically different types of countries. Damage functions are concave for...

Strongly correlated and spatially concentrated curtailment of power plants strongly affects the electricity market. Such curtailment is observed during heat waves in middle Europe, for example. First, curtailed power plants need to be substituted by more expensive ones. Second, additional...

This paper explores transnational environmental agreements on climate change. As the Paris agreement of 2015 contains no binding emission reduction targets for nation states, understanding other forms of cooperation as complements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change...

What can institutional economics offer to analyze and shape the transformation of electricity systems towards a low-carbon future? This volume presents papers from a postgraduate research course in "Sustainability Economics and Management" in the winter term 2014/15. The introductory chapter...

We extend the theory of peak-load pricing by considering that the production with different technologies can be adjusted within their capacity at different speeds. In the established analysis, all production decisions can be made after the random variables realize. In our setting, in contrast,...

Shall investments become more robust or more short-lived if unfavorable exogeneous conditions become more uncertain? What if the investments' design is irreversible for its whole life time? Such decision problems are frequently encountered, for example in infrastructure construction. We analyze...

Policy advocates frequently request for unilateral action to push forward climate protection in international negotiations. It is yet conventional wisdom in environmental economics that unilateral action does not pay for the first mover due to free-riding behavior of the other countries. How...