Bending The Learning Curve

Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks, Elena Verdolini and Massimo Tavoni ()

No 2015.65, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: This paper aims at improving the application of the learning curve, a popular tool used for forecasting future costs of renewable technologies in integrated assessment models (IAMs). First, we formally discuss under what assumptions the traditional (OLS) estimates of the learning curve can deliver meaningful predictions in IAMs. We argue that the most problematic of them is the absence of any effect of technology cost on its demand (reverse causality). Next, we show that this assumption can be relaxed by modifying the traditional econometric method used to estimate the learning curve. The new estimation approach presented in this paper is robust to the reverse causality problem but preserves the reduced form character of the learning curve. Finally, we provide new estimates of learning curves for wind turbines and PV technologies which are tailored for use in IAMs. Our results suggest that the learning rate should be revised downward for wind power, but possibly upward for solar PV.

Keywords: Learning Curve; Renewable Technologies; Integrated Assessment Models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 C55 Q42 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm, nep-ene and nep-for
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/w ... oads/NDL2015-065.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Bending the learning curve (2015)
Working Paper: Bending The Learning Curve (2015)
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:fem:femwpa:2015.65

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alberto Prina Cerai ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).