Modeling the Links between Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing in the Context of Climate Change: Results from an Econometric Analysis on the European Forest Ecosystems

25 p.

Literature Review of Integrated Impact Assessment Models of Climate Change with Emphasis on Damage Functions

35 p.

The Impact of Regulation on Pricing Behavior in the Spanish Electricity Market

In this paper we measure the impact of regulatory measures which affected the Spanish electricity wholesale market in the period 2002-2005. Our approach is based on the fact that regulation changes firms' incentives and therefore their market behavior. In the absence of any regulation firms would choose profit- maximizing prices on their residual demands so that the observed gap between optimal and actual prices provides a measure of the effect of regulation. Our results indicate that regulation has decreased wholesale prices considerably, but became less effective at the end of the sample period which explains the change of regulatory regime introduced in 2006.

Can the change in the composition of the US GDP explain the Great Moderation? A test via oil price shocks

The paper investigates whether the growing GDP share of the services sector can contribute to explain the great moderation in the US. We identify and analyze three oil price shocks and use a SVAR analysis to measure their economic impact on the US economy at both the aggregate and the sectoral level. We find mixed support for the explanation of the great moderation in terms of shrinking oil shock volatilities and observe that increases (decreases) in oil shock volatilities are contrasted by a weakening (strengthening) in their transmission mechanism. Across sectors, services are the least affected by any oil shock. As the contribution of services to the GDP volatility increases over time, we conclude that a composition effect contributed to moderate the conditional volatility to oil shocks of the US GDP.

The Role of Regions in Climate Change Policy

28 p.

Climate change impacts on the water services in Costa Rica: a production function for the hydroenergy sector

23 p.

Local air pollution and global climate change taxes: a distributional analysis

25 p.

Climate Change and Its Socioeconomic Importance

25 p.