The Energy Transition in Political Equilibrium

化石燃料的消耗导致了严重的环境问题。人们对向不依赖化石燃料的经济的“能源转型”寄予厚望。过渡的主要部分是：(1)通过税收、排放上限和其他手段的政府监管减少化石燃料需求；(2)能源公司增加对可再生能源能力的投资；(3)随着对可再生能源技术更高需求的预期促进研究和开发，可再生能源技术的技术进步加快。虽然能源转型将解决一个大规模的社会问题，但它也造成了净输家，即与化石燃料互补的资产的所有者--例如燃煤发电厂。因此，可以预期他们的利益集团会抵制监管。然而，目前还不清楚是什么决定了这种政治抵抗的成功及其发展。会有永久的反对吗--或者当现有的能源公司利用他们的技术诀窍和财政资源投资于可再生能源并为技术发展做出贡献时，阻力会消失吗？基于资源能源经济学和政治经济学等不同文献的见解，该研究项目旨在使用包括博弈论和动态优化在内的分析经济模型来回答这些问题。该项目通过分析投资决策和利益集团形成之间的相互作用来扩展现有的文献，从而分析在什么条件下能源政策不仅是福利最大化的，而且在政治上是可行的。该项目的目标是开发一个易于分析的模型，使其能够了解政治事态发展，并可作为经验性应用的基础。

Fossil-fuel consumption causes severe environmental problems. High hopes rest on an "energy transition" towards an economy that does not rely on fossil fuels. The transition's main components are (1) reduction of fossil-fuel demand via governmental regulation with taxes, emission caps, and other instruments, (2) increased investment of energy firms in renewable-energy capacity, (3) an acceleration of technological progress in renewable-energy technologies as the expectation of higher demand for these technologies increases research and development. While the energy transition would solve a large-scale societal problem, it also creates net losers, namely, the owners of assets that are complementary to fossil fuel - for example, coal-fired power plants. Therefore, their interest groups can be expected to resist regulation. It is unclear, however, what determines the success of this political resistance and its development. Will there be a permanent opposition - or does resistance fade out while incumbent energy firms use their know-how and their financial resources to invest in renewables and contribute to technological development? Building on insights from different strands of literature including resource and energy economics and political economy, the research project aims at answering these questions using analytical economic models, including game theory and dynamic optimization. The project extends the current literature by analyzing the interaction between investment decisions and interest-group formation, and thus analyzes under which conditions energy policy is not only welfare-maximizing, but also politically feasible. The goal of the project is to develop an analytically tractable model that allows to understand political developments and that can serve as a basis for empirical applications.