Collaborative Research: How Policy Affects Power Plants in an Age of Experimentalist Governance

该项目测试了各种政策对发电厂排放和用水的影响。此外，它还调查了这些政策的有效性如何受到国家的收入分配、创业活动、政府集中和公用事业资产集中的影响。这项研究使用了国际能源署和世界资源研究所汇编的数据。这一项目的结果有望推动政策研究领域，特别是我们对政策工具在世界各地迅速传播的后果的理解。通过确定创业活动等国情如何削弱或加强政策的效力，结果还可以帮助政府决策哪些循证项目最适合促进特定国家的健康和福利。该项目的数据来自WRI最新创建的关于190个国家2万多座发电厂的排放和用水的数据集(2004年至2014年)与国际能源署关于国内政策的数据库。检验了以下假设：1)在不平等程度较低的国家，政策更有可能减少排放；2)政策在大力支持创业活动的环境中更有效；3)在适度集中的治理体系中，关于使用的政策和关于影响的政策不太好地协同工作；以及4)当发电厂由主导国内电力市场的公司所有时，政策更容易增加发电厂的排放量和用水量。该项目为个别政策的有效性提供了新的证据，但也揭示了它们之间的权衡以及它们越来越不相容的情况。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project tests the effects of various policies on the emissions and water usage of power plants. In addition, it investigates how the effectiveness of these policies is affected by countries' income distribution, entrepreneurial activity, government centralization, and concentration of utility assets. This study uses data compiled by the IEA and the World Resources Institute. Findings from this project promise to advance the field of policy research and especially our understanding of consequences of the rapid diffusion of policy instruments around the world. By determining how national conditions such as entrepreneurial activity weaken or strengthen the potency of policies, results also can aid government decisions about which evidence-based programs are best suited for promoting a particular nation's health and welfare.Data for this project comes from merging the WRI's newly created Power Watch dataset on the emissions and water usage of over 20,000 power plants in 190 countries (2004 to 2014) with the IEA's database on domestic policies. The following hypotheses are tested: 1) policies are more likely to decrease emissions in countries with less inequality, 2) policies are more effective in settings that strongly support entrepreneurial activity, 3) policies on use and policies on effects work less well together within moderately centralized governance systems, and 4) policies are more apt to increase the emissions and water consumption of plants when the plants are owned by companies that dominate domestic electricity markets. This project provides new evidence on the effectiveness of individual policies, but also sheds light on their trade-offs and the circumstances under which they are more and less compatible.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.