The efficiency of electricity generation in hard coal fired power plants varies considerably from country to country and over time. These differences occur both between developing and developed countries and between industrialised nations. The econometric analysis presented in this paper tests for the reasons of these discrepancies. In this examination abundance of hard coal and the price of hard coal are the two variables of our major interest. We assume that countries with an abundance of hard coal or relatively low costs of extraction show smaller degrees of efficiency than countries with poor deposits of this resource because the latter nations have a stronger dependency on efficient power plants than the former. Furthermore, higher prices should lead to more efficient electricity generation since production costs increase with growing hard coal prices. Our findings partially confirm these hypotheses and suggest that, among the chosen explanatory variables, hard coal abundance or the accessibility of hard coal, respectively, the hard coal price, the level of foreign direct investment inflows as well as the average power plant age are identified as principal drivers of power plant efficiency. From an environmental policy perspective we conclude that flexible policy instruments which internalise external effects caused by emissions as well as support for foreign investments are important means to foster energy efficiency. However, economic efficiency - even if contrasting with energy efficiency - must not be neglected in the design of energy policies.

From 1 January 2005 onwards the European Union has launched the first large-scale international carbon emissions trading program. As the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) covers only part of domestic carbon emissions, it implies a hybrid environmental regulation scheme: Each EU Member State must specify additional domestic abatement policies for the sectors that are not covered by the emissions trading scheme in order to meet its emissions budget under the EU Burden Sharing Agreement. Based on numerical simulations for Germany, we illustrate the efficiency drawback of hybrid carbon regulation which becomes particularly relevant when distributional constraints of the current EU-ETS design are taken into account.

Climate change and energy consumption are at the forefront of current environmental debate. Whilst energy is essential to the functioning and survival of our societies, the environmental impact that energy consumption is having, particularly on climate change, is a growing concern and the design and practicalities of energy and energy-related environmental policies are under constant scrutiny. This innovative new book not only addresses the economic assessment of environmental and energy policies but also discusses the efficiency and distributional consequences these policies have for producers and consumers.

Reimplementation of an EU-wide emissions trading system by means of National Allocation Plans is at the core of the European environmental policy agenda. EU Member States must allocate their national emission budgets under the EU Burden Sharing Agreement between energy-intensive sectors that are eligible for European emissions trading and the remaining segments of their economies that will be subject to complementary domestic emission regulation. We show that such hybrid emission regulation may lead to substantial excess costs compared to a comprehensive emissions trading system covering all segments of the economy. Furthermore, the hybrid system associated with the current design of National Allocation Plans is likely to discriminate against sectors that are not part of the emissions trading scheme. The interested reader can make use of a web-based interactive simulation model in order to specify and evaluate alternative settings of the EU emissions trading system.

In the debate on the premature phase-out of nuclear power generation in Germany, there is an intense dispute on the effective operating time for the existing nuclear power plants. This paper addresses the question of how alternative phase-out regulations affect both the magnitude of total economic costs and the distribution of these costs across nuclear power plants and competing companies. Based on a dynamic partial equilibrium analysis of power supply options, we quantify the excess costs of different regulatory approaches as a function over time and investigate the implied competitive effects at the plant as well as at the company level. We find that alternative phase-out regulations which effectively lead to the same date for an ultimate shutdown of nuclear power generation exhibit large differences in total costs. The competitive distortions across companies also vary considerably with the chosen regulation depending on how the respective cost implications at the plant level get distributed at the company level via the specific ownership. Our quantitative results refer to nuclear phase-out scenarios for Germany and its specific plant structure as well as plant-ownership by companies. However, the issues and methodological approaches presented in this paper may be important for other industrialized countries which also contemplate a premature nuclear phase-out.

By allowing the impetus for change to come from the staff rather than administration, this hospital gained the enthusiastic support of its critical care staff for an innovative schedule.

In economic models a common approach to the description of technological re lationships between input factors is the use of neoclassical production functions. Thi s type of production function is based on the assumption that the switch from one input combina tion to another is not restricted. Changes in the input combinations are mainly caused by changes in relative prices. Putty-clay effects like the dependency of the production possi bilities on the existing capital stock or of the technological development on the vintage str ucture of the capital stock are ignored in most of the models. From an engineering point of view doubts are stated about the ability of this approach to describe the technological options f or input factor substitution in a realistic way. It is argued that load factors as wel l as the dependency of the use of fuels and other materials on the development of the capital stock have to be taken into account. For example, the electricity sector shows that a considerable substitution of input s is only possible if there is a need for replacement investments i.e. new power plants. Thus, t aking into account technical restrictions and the fact that excess capacity in the different load areas is limited, a given power plant stock provides only a marginal ability to switc h substantially from one kind of fuel to another - at least as long as there is no need for t he replacement of whole plants. The possibilities to change the fuel mix - allowing for tec hnical constraints, the vintage structure of the power plant stock etc. - can be assesse d by using the results of energy system models. Such a model is used in the following. The aim of t his paper is to point out ways to improve the technological foundation of production functions in economic models. The paper aims at ensuring increasingly realistic results based on applied energy economic modeling and, hence, at an improved robustness of policy recommendations.