In den vergangenen Jahren erlebte Deutschland einen Solarboom. Stark fallende Preise für Solarmodule sowie die hohen Einspeisevergütungen führten dazu, dass die Photovoltaik (PV) massiv ausgebaut wurde. Dies ist entgegen erster Intuition keine gute, sondern eine gefährliche Entwicklung.

This note attempts to reconcile a range of primary methods for dealing with price asymmetry, such as the approaches proposed by Tweeten and Quance (1969), Wolffram (1971) and Houk(1977). Using Wolffram’s stylized example, we first illustrate that the notion of asymmetry can be captured in a...

As part of its efforts to reach the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, in April 2009 the European Commission enacted new legislation to reduce the per-kilometer CO2 emissions of newly registered automobiles. This paper critically assesses this legislation with respect to its economic and...

The allure of an environmentally benign, abundant, and cost-effective energy source has led an increasing number of industrialized countries to back public financing of renewable energies. Germany's experience with renewable energy promotion is often cited as a model to be replicated elsewhere,...

The allure of an environmentally benign, abundant, and cost-effective energy source has led an increasing number of industrialized countries to back public financing of renewable energies. Germany's experience with renewable energy promotion is often cited as a model to be replicated elsewhere,...

This article revisits an analysis by Frondel, Ritter and Schmidt (2008) of Germany’s Renewable Energy Act, which legislates a system of feed-in tariff s to promote the use of renewable energies. As in the original article, we argue that Germany’s support scheme subsidizes renewable energy...

Germany’s energy transition has been accompanied by a near doubling of power prices for private households since the outset of the new millennium. Millions of poor households and those that are close to the poverty threshold are likely to suffer from these increases in electricity cost....

The recent revision of the European Commission's Energy Tax Directive intends to tax fuels based on both energy content and related carbon dioxide emissions. To explore the implications of such a tax regime for automobile travel, this paper undertakes a comparative econometric analysis of price...