‘Nudging’ energy users: regulatory measures to address the risk of aggregate peak demand in European electricity markets

For decades regulators in the energy sector have focused on facilitating the maximisation of energy supply in order to meet demand through liberalisation and removal of market barriers. The debate on climate change has emphasised a new type of risk in the balance between energy demand and supply: excessively high energy demand brings about significantly negative environmental and economic impacts. This is because if a vast number of users is consuming electricity at the same time, energy suppliers have to activate dirty old power plants with higher greenhouse gas emissions and higher system costs. The creation of a Europe-wide electricity market requires a systematic investigation into the risk of aggregate peak demand. This paper draws on the e-Living Time-Use Survey database to assess the risk of aggregate peak residential electricity demand for European energy markets. Findings highlight in which countries and for what activities the risk of aggregate peak demand is greater. The discussion highlights which approaches energy regulators have started considering to convince users about the risks of consuming too much energy during peak times. These include ‘nudging’ approaches such as the roll-out of smart meters, incentives for shifting the timing of energy consumption, differentiated time-of-use tariffs, regulatory financial incentives and consumption data sharing at the community level.

Law and the power of feminism: how marriage lost its power to oppress women

In Feminism and the Power of Law Carol Smart argued that feminists should use non-legal strategies rather than looking to law to bring about women’s liberation. This article seeks to demonstrate that, as far as marriage is concerned, she was right. Statistics and contemporary commentary show how marriage, once the ultimate and only acceptable status for women, has declined in social significance to such an extent that today it is a mere lifestyle choice. This is due to many factors, including the ‘sexual revolution’ of the 1960s, improved education and job opportunities for women, and divorce law reform, but the catalyst for change was the feminist critique that called for the abandonment (rather than the reform) of the institution and made the unmarried state possible for women. I conclude that this loss of significance has been more beneficial to British women in terms of the possibility of ‘liberation’ than appeals for legal change and recognition, and that we should continue to be wary of looking to law to solve women’s problems.

The impact of price promotions on producer strategies in markets with large product heterogeneity

Although current research indicates that increasing the number of options has negative effects on the cognitive ability of consumers, little understanding has been given to the consequences on producers and their strategic behavior. This article tests whether a large portfolio of products is beneficial to producers by observing UK consumer response to price promotions. The article shows that discounts induce mainly segment switching (74% of the total impact), with a limited effect on stockpiling (26%) and no impact on purchase incidence. Consequently, consumers prefer to “follow the discount” rather than purchase multiple units of the same wine. This result seems to explain the current structure of the market, and suggests that discounts may conflict with segment loyalty, a situation that disfavors producers, particularly in very populated segments. Results also casts doubts on the economic sustainability of competition based on an intense product differentiation in the wine sector.

I wouldn’t start from here: some reflections on the analysis of housing markets

The insights of behavioural economics are questioned and an approach suggested that is based on empirical studies of how people actually behave in housing markets.

The impact of buy to let residential investment on local housing markets: evidence from Glasgow, Scotland

The advent of the 'buy to let' (BTL) phenomenon in the UK. apart from producing a new wave of individualized rental market investment, has been widely judged to be a speculative and destabilizing force in the housing market. This paper provides a detailed empirical investigation of new residential investment in one city (Glasgow) where BTL has made a relatively large impact. In seeking to overcome data problems, the study employed qualitative (expert interviews and a landlord survey) and quantitative methods (census, the Register of Sasines, standardized house price information and modelling thereof) in order to assess the nature and scale of BTL, the motivations of investors and its impact on the private housing market. The evidence suggests that white Glasgow is in many re.spects different to rental markets elsewhere in the UK and although the investment has thus far largely occurred in a benign environment, the context for future investment, on balance, looks sustainable (i.e.favourable changes to pension planning law and the maturing market for BTL}. Long-term market impact is an empirical question that depends on the specific interactions of market niches or segments (i.e. the first-time buyer market for apartments} with potential buy to let investment. Our conclusion, to borrow a Scottish legal term, is that BTL induced volatility is 'not proven'.

Endogenous business cycles with frictional labour markets

We present a neoclassical model of capital accumulation with frictional labour markets. Under standard parameter values the equilibrium of the model is indeterminate and consequently displays expectations-driven business cycles – so-called endogenous business cycles. We study the properties of such cycles, and find that the model predicts the high autocorrelation in output growth and the hump-shaped impulse response of output found in US data – important features that existing endogenous real business cycle models fail to explain. The indeterminacy of the equilibrium stems from job search externalities and does not rely on increasing returns to scale as in most models.

Risk premia in covered bond markets

The authors empirically explore risk premia in mortgage covered bond markets. Using a large panel dataset of covered bond asset swap spreads, they study the impact of different legal and economic environments. Conducting an in-depth analysis of this market, the authors find significant but small differences between countries during normal market periods. However, these differences are much stronger during times of economic crisis. Moreover, they find that developments in the real estate market are of relatively little importance during stable market periods. During economic distress, however, they are of high importance for explaining risk premia in covered bond markets

The influence of markets and policy on spatial patterns of non-timber forest product extraction

When villagers extract resources, such as fuelwood, fodder, or medicinal plants from forests, their decisions over where and how much to extract are influenced by market conditions, their particular opportunity costs of time, minimum consumption needs, and access to markets. This paper develops an optimization model of villagers’ extraction behavior that clarifies how, and under what conditions, policies that create incentives such as improved returns to extraction in a buffer zone might be used instead of adversarial enforcement efforts to protect a forest’s pristine ‘‘inner core.’’

Structure, conduct and the stochastic volatility of food markets: theory and empirics

The relationship between price volatility and competition is examined. Atheoretic, vector auto regressions on farm prices of wheat and retail prices of derivatives (flour, bread, pasta, bulgur and cookies) are compared to results from a dynamic, simultaneous-equations model with theory-based farm-to-retail linkages. Analytical results yield insights about numbers of firms and their impacts on demand- and supply-side multipliers, but the applications to Turkish time series (1988:1-1996:12) yield mixed results.

Macro-economic and financial determinants of comovement across global real estate security markets

This paper models the determinants of integration in the context of global real estate security markets. Using both local and U.S. Dollar denominated returns, we model conditional correlations across listed real estate sectors and also with the global stock market. The empirical results find that financial factors, such as the relationship with the respective equity market, volatility, the relative size of the real estate sector and trading turnover all play an important role in the degree of integration present. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of macro-economic variables in the degree of integration present. All four of the macro-economic variables modeled provide at least one significant result across the specifications estimated. Factors such as financial and trade openness, monetary independence and the stability of a country’s currency all contribute to the degree of integration reported.

Real estate markets and the macroeconomy: a dynamic coherence framework

This paper analyzes the dynamic interactions between real estate markets, in the US and the UK and their macroeconomic environments. We apply a new approach based on a dynamic coherence function (DCF) to study these interactions bringing together different real estate markets (the securitized market, the commercial market and the residential market). The results suggest that there is a common trend that drives the different real estate markets in the UK and the US, particularly in the long run, since they have a similar shape of the DCF. We also find that, in the US, wealth and housing expenditure channels are very conductive during real estate crises. However, in the UK, only the wealth effect is significant as a transmission channel during real estate market downturns. In addition, real estate markets in the UK and the US react differently to institutional shocks. This brings some insights on the conduct of monetary policy in order to avoid disturbances in real estate markets.