Economics Discussion Paper Series

EDF’s Economics Discussion Paper Series presents economic works, research in progress, and policy discussions written by EDF Economists and external colleagues and co-authors.

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Improving Household and Community Disaster Recovery: Evidence on the Role of Insurance

We study the role of insurance in improving household and community disaster recovery. Harnessing unique survey data of residents impacted by four land-falling hurricanes in the U.S., we find that insured households are less likely to experience high financial burdens in both the short and longer-run post-disaster and are less likely to have unmet funding needs. Insurance also provides spillover benefits for the local economy. Post-disaster visitation rates to many local businesses increase with flood insurance payouts. Despite this, motivating purchase of disaster insurance remains a challenge among low-income households who are less likely to report seeing insurance as useful.

Authors: Xuesong You and Carolyn Kousky

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Potential Greenhouse Gas Reductions Beyond Chile's Nationally Determined Contribution to 2030: Preliminary Modelling Results

A prospective emissions open-access model was developed by a modeling team from the Global Change Center of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile to explore mitigation opportunities beyond Chile’s NDC. This paper shares the results, which represent a first approximation of the mitigation potential and its costs.

Authors: Andrés Pica-Téllez, Álvaro Lorca, Raúl Urtubia, Luis Abdon Cifuentes, José Miguel Valdes. Viviana Cerda-Gho, Catalina Veloso, Diego González, Horacio Gilabert, Francisco Meza, Francisco Pinto, Valentina Jara, Catalina Marinkovic-De la Cruz, Sebastián Vicuña, Juan Pablo Montero

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Policy Instrument Options for Addressing Methane Emissions from the Oil and Gas Sector

This paper outlines different policy instrument options for both oil and gas producing as well as –importing countries and is intended as a descriptive guide for those interested in exploring different public policy instruments and how they can be designed to address methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

Authors: Kristina Mohlin, Maureen Lackner, Huong Nguyen, Aaron Wolfe

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Forest Protection and Permanence of Reduced Emissions

This research models the application of different policy pathways to slow down and stop deforestation, and finds that REDD+ works as an initial intervention to help shift tropical nations towards a zero-deforestation trajectory.

Authors: Margaret McCallister, Andrey Krasovskiy, Anton Platov, Alexander Golub, Breno Pietracci, and Gabriela Leslie.

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Cost-Reflective Residential Electricity Tariff Design: Synthesis of research findings on the impacts on customer bills, adoption of distributed energy resources and pollution

This synthesis paper summarizes the findings from a research project on the impacts of residential electricity tariff design on adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs), pollution and customer bills.

Authors: Kristina Mohlin, Beia Spiller, Karen Tapia-Ahumada and Burcin Unel.

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Agricultural Climate Change Adaptation: A Review of Recent Approaches

This report reviews two recent approaches to studying climate change adaptation in agriculture: panel data methods and spatial general equilibrium models.

Author: Tara Sullivan.

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The U.S. Gas Pipeline Transportation Market

This paper outlines the regulations and main features of the U.S. gas transportation market to facilitate analyses of how to improve the design and regulation of this market for the energy transition.

Author: Kristina Mohlin.

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Pricing Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Production

This brief assesses how a price on methane from oil and gas production could complement existing regulations and incentivize companies to further increase their mitigation and monitoring efforts to achieve methane emission reductions.

Authors: Maureen Lackner, Jonathan R. Camuzeaux, Suzi Kerr and Kristina Mohlin.

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The Plastic Economy

This report reviews the literature on the impacts of plastic, explores environmentally-friendly plastic alternatives, and examines plastic regulations and discusses evidence of their efficacy at reducing plastic use and pollution.

Authors: Lihini De Silva, Jacqueline Doremus and Rebecca L. C. Taylor.

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The Health Benefits of Solar Power Generation

This paper estimates the impact of solar energy deployment on health outcomes in Chile, identifying some of the important co-benefits of renewable energy investments in developing countries.

Authors: Nathaly Rivera, Cristobal Ruiz-Tagle, and Beia Spiller.

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Water Management in the Western U.S.

This report discusses water management in the western U.S. and investigates related problems. Topics include fragmented water management, groundwater market design, and agricultural adaptation to reduced water supplies.

Author: Shanchao Wang.

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The Role of Electricity Tariff Design in Distributed Energy Resource Deployment

This work simulates the effect of electricity tariffs on household adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs), providing insights into tariff design and the role of DERs in a future decarbonized electricity system.

Authors: Beia Spiller, Ricardo Esparza, Kristina Mohlin, Karen Tapia-Ahumada and Burcin Unel.

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Agricultural Offset Potential in the United States

This article describes efforts undertaken by EDF over the past decade to design and implement agricultural GHG offset credit markets for several crops and geographies.

Authors: Jeremy Proville, Robert Parkhurst, Steven Koller, Sara Kroopf, Justin S. Baker and William A. Salas.

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Wholesale Electricity Market Design for Decarbonization

This paper presents an overview of the most salient challenges involved with decarbonizing electricity markets through wholesale market design, identifying areas where economic research can advance this crucial policy goal.

Author: Christopher Holt.

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