Would hotelling kill the electric car?
Ujjayant Chakravorty (),
Andrew Leach and
Michel Moreaux
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2011, vol. 61, issue 3, 281-296
Abstract:
In this paper, we show that the potential for endogenous technological change in alternative energy sources may alter the behaviour of resource-owning firms. When technological progress in an alternative energy source can occur through learning-by-doing, resource owners face competing incentives to extract rents from the resource and to prevent expansion of the new technology. We show that in such a context, it is not necessarily the case that scarcity-driven higher traditional energy prices over time will induce alternative energy supply as resources are exhausted. Rather, we show that as we increase the learning potential in the substitute technology, lower equilibrium energy prices prevail and there may be increased resource extraction and greenhouse gas emissions. We show that the effectiveness and the incidence of emissions reduction policies may be altered by increased potential for technological change. Our results suggest that treating finite resource rents as endogenous consequences of both technological progress and policy changes will be important for the accurate assessment of climate change policy.
Keywords: Resource; extraction; Climate; change; Induced; innovation; Learning-by-doing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095-0696(10)00124-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: Would Hotelling Kill the Electric Car? (2010) 
Working Paper: Would Hotelling Kill the Electric Car? (2010) 
Working Paper: Would Hotelling Kill the Electric Car? (2010) 
Working Paper: Would Hotelling Kill the Electric Car? (2010) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:61:y:2011:i:3:p:281-296
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates
More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().