Impact of energy-using product policies

Energy-using products (EuPs), such as domestic appliances, audio-visual and ICT equipment contribute significantly to CO2 emissions, both in the domestic and non-domestic sectors. Policies that encourage the use of more energy efficient products can therefore generate significant reductions in overall energy consumption and hence, CO2 emissions. To the extent that these policies cause an increase the average production cost of EuPs, they may impose economic costs on producers, or on consumers, or on both. In this theoretical paper, an adaptation of a simple vertical product differentiation model – in which products are characterised in terms of their quality and their energy consumption – is used to analyse the impact of the different EuP polices on product innovation and to assess the resultant economic impacts on producers and consumers. It is shown that whereas the imposition of a binding product standard for energy efficiency unambiguously reduces aggregate profit and increases the average market price in the absence of any learning effects, the introduction or strengthening of demand-side measures (such as energy labelling) may reduce, or increase, aggregate profit. Even in the case where the overall impact is unambiguously negative, the effects of product innovation and learning can be in either direction.

Private school quality in Italy

Private school enrolment may lead to worse subsequent performance in further education or in the labour market. If students differ in their ability not only to pay but to take advantage of educational opportunities (“talent” for short), private schools attract a worse pool of students when publicly funded schools are better suited to foster progress by more talented students. In the data we analyze, the impact of observable talent proxies on educational and labour market outcomes is indeed more positive for students who (endogenously) choose to attend public schools than for those who choose to pay for private education.

Accessibility Planning tools for sustainable and integrated Land Use/Transport (LUT) development: an application to Rome

The paper fits into the themes of sustainable accessibility planning in urban areas, that can be defined as the integration of transport and land use planning to achieve sustainable development. In particular the study proposes a tool to support the choices of activities location, which is based on a new aggregate (zone-specific) indicator: the ‘Marginal Activity Access Cost’, providing estimation in monetary terms of the impacts on mobility and on the environment of locating one new activity in a specific zone of the urban area. The proposed indicator is validated through an application to the urban area of Rome.