An international team of economists met to share current research
AREC hosted the 8th annual workshop of the Empirical Methods in Energy Economics (EMEE) network at the University of Maryland on 9-10 July 2015. The workshop featured a total of 14 “long” presentations, 6 “short” presentations, and several posters. AREC was well represented at the workshop, with faculty member Sebastien Houde presenting a paper and discussing one, Anna Alberini and Rob Williams serving as discussants, plus presentations and posters by PhD candidates Davide Cerruti, Mark Miller, Shirley Pon and Jaci Evans. Recent graduate Jessica Post and current AREC major Robby Berry presented a poster on CO2 emissions attributable to residential energy usage and personal transportation by Italian households. AREC FIRE undergraduate students also attended.
We were also pleased to see former students Antonio Bento, currently a professor at Cornell University and soon to join the University of Southern California, who presented a paper on the effects of climate change on ozone (a so-called “criteria” air pollutant covered by the Clean Air Act and its Amendments), and Adan Martinez-Cruz, currently a post-doc at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, who examined whether annual car registration fees linked to the vehicle’s CO2 emissions induce earlier retirement of old and highly polluting vehicles.
AREC Sebastien Houde presented a paper that shows that, contrary to claims sometimes made by observers and industry, the quality of appliances (e.g., washing machines, refrigerators, etc.) has actually improved over time.
Ken Gillingham presented evidence from a randomized controlled trial conducted at the municipality level in Connecticut, showing that the presence of local promoters does indeed result in a higher rate of adoption of photovoltaics (PVs).
EMEE participants hailed from academic and research institutions and government agencies in Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and of course the US.
EMEE membership is free. Register with the EMEE network at http://www.emee.ethz.ch/ to stay up to date on events and next year’s EMEE workshop.
Photos:
Marie Hyland, The Economic and Social Research Institute, and Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Matthew Hansen, National Energy Board, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
