The German energy transition repeatedly faces harsh critiques questioning its economic and environmental merit. This article defends the Energiewende and argues that Germany has chosen a rational and particularly forceful approach to securing sustainable energy supply. Though current...

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Folgen einer polit-ökonomischen Betrachtung des europäischen Emissionshandels (ETS) für die ökonomisch optimale klima- und energiepolitische Instrumentenwahl. Die aus dem wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Raum prominent vorgetragene Forderung, die energiepolitische...

In this paper, we analyze the rationale for an energy policy mix when the European Emissions Trading scheme (ETS) is considered from a public choice perspective. That is, we argue that the economic textbook model of the ETS implausibly assumes 1) efficient policy design and 2) climate protection...

In this paper, I use the resilience framework to interpret the project of transforming the German energy system into a renewable energy sources (RES)-based system, the so-called Energiewende, as a regime shift. This regime shift comprises several transformations, which are currently altering the...

We perform a model analysis to study the origins of limited resilience in ecological-economic systems. We demonstrate that the resilience properties of the ecosystem are essentially determined by the management institutions and consumers' preferences for ecosystem services. In particular, we...

Ecosystem resilience, i.e. an ecosystem's ability to maintain its basic functions and controls under disturbances, is often interpreted as insurance: by decreasing the probability of future drops in the provision of ecosystem services, resilience insures risk-averse ecosystem users against...

It is often argued that Germany's energy transition (the so-called Energiewende) needs to be Europeanized, so as to make the transition process more efficient. In particular, the German system of feed-in tariffs for renewables is criticized for being an obstacle to efficient European energy...

It is often argued that energy policy is too fragmented across EU Member States and should be Europeanized to pave the way towards an efficiently organized European power system, which rest on the internal market for energy and a pan-European super-grid. However, this view neglects i) the...

Germany has embarked on an ambitious project to transform its energy system until 2050 - the so-called Energiewende. Some critics contend that the Energiewende imposes unneces-sary and avoidable welfare losses due to a lack of integration within the EU. In contrast, these critiques largely miss...