SIRE Energy Economics Workshop - Aberdeen - 29 May 2015
The Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy Economics and Finance (ACREEF) at University of Aberdeen will host a SIRE energy economics workshop on Friday, 29 May.
The venue is The Sir Duncan Rice Library Seminar Room 224 on Old Aberdeen campus which is 10mins by car from the train station- the library is building #9.
Participation is free but registration is required for accessing the venue and for catering purpose. If you wish to drive to the event, please indicate that along with your registration. Subject to availability we can provide reserved parking spaces but will require to be notified in advance.
As usual, SIRE will cover reasonable travel expenses of academics and PhD students based in Scotland.
Please RSVP to Xin Jin (xjin@abdn.ac.uk) before the 22nd of May.
Environment Camp 2012
4-6 September 2012: ‘Environment Camp on Environmental Valuation Methods for Ecosystem Services’ in Stirling
This event had a 34 strong participant list, representing input from the universities of Trinity College Dublin, Copenhagen, Aberdeen, East Anglia, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, KU Leuven, Royal Holloway, Kiel, Brandenburg, Imperial College London, Leeds, North Carolina State University, Edinburgh and the host, Stirling. Although most participants were academics, relevant policy sectors of the Scottish Government and the UK Environment Agency were also represented.
Keynote speakers were:
- Prof Nick Hanley: A behavioural economics examination of information and uncertainty in stated preference valuation
- Prof Brett Day (University of East Anglia): What is exciting me in non-market valuation?
- Prof E.J. Milner-Gulland (Imperial College London): Linking fisheries approaches and household utility models for improved resource management
- Prof Laura Taylor (North Carolina State University): Quasi-experiments in non-market valuation and regulatory analysis
In addition the Camp also gave the opportunity to comment on 14 contributed presentations by postgraduate students and postdocs. The main goal was to provide participants a platform to present their work in a relaxed workshop environment and to learn about the latest developments in the field of valuation methods. Given this goal, the environment camp was set up in such a way that in between and after sessions there was a sufficient discussion time to reflect on any of the research issues.
There are now plans for an international workshop on mechanism design for environmental protection in May 2013.
9 February 2012: University of Strathclyde
Speakers included
- Ian Lange (University of Stirling), Impacts of Electricity Restructuring on Coal-fired Power Plants
- Shawn Mu (University of Dundee), On The Long Run Trend of Crude Oil Prices
- Sarah Polborn (Aarhus University), How Geoengineering May Encourage Carbon Dioxide Abatement
- Neil Strachan (University College London), The Policy Application of Energy-Economic Whole Systems Models
21 June 2011: University of Edinburgh
Speakers included
- Duopoly Oliwia Kurtyka, Lecturer, Lancaster University, " The Switching Effect of Environmental Taxation within Bertrand Differentiated"
- Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh, " Does Hazardous Waste Remediation Raise Housing Values? Evidence of Spatially Localized Benefits."
31 March-1 April 2011: SIRE Environment Camp, University of Stirling
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The University of Stirling hosted a two day workshop entitled Environment Camp, featuring three keynote talks, two tutorials, and 8 contributed presentation, aimed at postgraduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and lecturers. The day provided researchers the opportunity to share their work and learn about new methodologies in a relaxed, workshop environment. A goal of SIRE Environment Camp is to stimulate research and build a closely linked community of environmental economists in the UK.
The three keynote talks were
Professor Chris Timmins (Duke University)
“The New Economics of Equilibrium Sorting and its Transformational Role for Policy Evaluation”
Professor Nick Hanley (University of Stirling)
“Economics of Sustainable Development”
Professor Richard Green (University of Birmingham)
“How to Reform an Electricity Market (?)”
The two 1.5 hour tutorials were:
Dr. Grischa Perino (University of East Anglia)
“Modelling the Impact of Environmental Policy on Innovation”
Ian Lange (University of Stirling)
“Panel Data Methods for Environmental Economics”
For more information about the SIRE Environment Camp, please visit the dedicated website.
8-10 April 2010: Well-being, Happiness and the Environment Workshop, University of Stirling
This two day international workshop, in Stirling, was organised by Nick Hanley and Mirko Moro (Stirling). There were key note presentations from:
- David Maddison (U of Birmingham), “Do Geographical Variations in Climate Influence Happiness?”
- Nick Hanley (U of Stirling), “Decision versus Experienced Utility: An investigation using the Choice Experiment Method”
- Peter Martinsson (U of Gothenburg, Sweden), “Subjective Well-Being among the Very Poor: Are they Different?”
- Katrin Rehdanz (Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany), “Species diversity and human well-being: A spatial econometric approach”
- Heinz Welsch (U of Oldenburg, Germany), “Is Pro-Environmental Consumption Utility Maximizing? Evidence from Happiness Data”
With additional presentations including:
- G. Mackerron (LSE), “Mean streets, green streets: Valuing urban environmental quality with spatial subjective wellbeing data”
- Filka Sekulova (U Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain), “On the happiness costs and benefits of climate change”
- Francesco Sarracino (CEPS/INSTEAD, Luxemburg) “Predicting the trend of well-being in Germany: how much do comparisons, adaptation and sociability matter?”
- Tom Murray (U of Birmingham), “Income Elasticity of Marginal Utility: What can Life Satisfaction tell us?”
- Martin Ljunge (U of Copenhagen, Denmark), “Half the job is showing up taxes, sick leaves, and well-being”
- Chris Barrington-Leigh (U of British Columbia, Canada), “Sustainable well-being and relative consumption effects beyond income”
- Mirko Moro (U of Stirling), “Income and Preferences for the Environment: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data”
- David Comerford, (UCD Geary Institute, Ireland), “Experimental Evidence of Utility Misprediction in Transport Mode Choice”
- Finbarr Brereton (Urban Institute Ireland, Ireland), “Environment, land-use and well-being”
- Elissaios Papyrakis (U of East Anglia, UK), “Economics of Climate Change and the Easterlin paradox
- Jan Eichhorn (U of Edinburgh), “Employment and Happiness: Defining the context”
The principal aim of this workshop was to assess the contribution of the recent economic literature that links self-reported measures of mental health, life satisfaction or happiness to environmental quality. What can we learn about the relationship between the environment and well-being from this literature? Can this data be used to inform cost-benefit analyses and public policies?
The workshop gave special attention to:
- the promotion of an ample and informed debate on the validity of the life satisfaction approach in eliciting preferences towards the environment;
- the policy implications arising from the current literature;
- the relationship between the life-satisfaction approach and standard methods used in analysing preferences towards public goods;
- the methodological and statistical issues to limit biases in survey methodologies and parameter estimation (e.g., endogeneity, measurement errors of variables, GIS techniques for happiness research).
3 March 3 2010: University of Stirling
The fourth in the series of SIRE Environmental and Energy Economics Workshops took place at Stirling in March. There were presentations from:
- David Ulph (St. Andrews) “Optimal Climate Change Policies When Governments Cannot Commit”
- Frans DeVries (Stirling) “On Technological Implications of Emissions Trading: Absolute versus Relative Design Schemes
- Grant Allan (Strathclyde) "Regional Economic Impacts of Biofuels: Lessons from Non-marine Derived Biofuels for Marine Algae Production in Northern Ireland, the Border region of Ireland and Western Scotland"
- Sue Chilton (Newcastle) “Willingness to Pay, Willingness to Accept and “Smooth vs Kinked” Utility of Wealth Functions: An Empirical Test of a Theoretical Debate”
As usual, this workshop drew a wide audience, with participants from:Strathclyde, Stirling, Edinburgh, Dundee, Heriot Watt and St Andrews. The 14 Fellows from the Edinburgh Chevening Fellows Programme on “Finance and Investment in a Low Carbon Economy” were a welcome addition the audience and discussion. In the morning, prior to the workshop, the ‘high-flying’ Fellows, from Australia (x2), Brazil, China (x2), Poland, Indonesia, Colombia, India (x2), Sri Lanka, Zambia, Taiwan, and Mexico, were given presentations on the environmental economics research being undertaken at Stirling.
4 December 2009: Heriot-Watt University
The third in the series of SIRE Environmental and Energy Economics Workshops took place at Heriot-Watt in December. As well as providing a valuable networking opportunity, there were presentations from:
- Dan Eager (Edinburgh), Janusz Bialek (Durham) and Tim Johnson (Heriot-Watt), "Simulating investment in electricity generation capacity as a dynamic control problem"
- Tooraj Jamasb (Heriot-Watt and Cambridge), "Network Regulation by Norm Model: The Case of Electricity Distribution in Sweden"
- Richard Welpton (Office of National Statistics), "Introduction to the Environmental and Energy Data in the Virtual Microdata Laboratory at the Office of National Statistics"
- Daniel Hinze (Environmental Analysis Unit, Scottish Government), "Carbon Assessment of the 2010-2011 Draft Budget"
- Susana Ferreira (University of Georgia) and Mirko Moro (University of Stirling), "Income and Preferences for the Environment: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data"
22 May 2009: University of Strathclyde
Presentations were given by:
- Ariel Bergmann (Edinburgh Napier), “The Optimal Use of Policy Instruments for Tradable Green Certificates.”
- Ian Lange (Stirling), “Economics in Environmental Policy Making: Stories from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
- Stephanie Gorman (Jacobs Ltd), “A Valuation of England’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Services”
- Karen Turner (University of Strathclyde) “Do Productivity Improvements Move us Along the Environmental Kuznets Curve?”
- Laura Malaguzzi Valeri (ESRI - Ireland) “Investment in Electricity Infrastructure in a Small Isolated Market: The Case of Ireland.”
Attendance was approx. 25 delegates wit a noticeable feature of attendance at boththe above events was the active participation of PhD students and economists from the public and private sectors.
11 March 2009: University of Stirling
The format of this, the inaugural workshop, gave an opportunity for the SIRE universities to outline the relevant skills and areas of interest of their staff, with presentations from Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Stirling and Strathclyde. In addition, there were two presentations of research papers:
- Joe Swierzbinski (Aberdeen) “Long Term Option Contracts for Carbon Emissions.
- Shawn Mu (Dundee) “Fuel Tax and Gasoline Consumptions: A Panel Data Analysis of Major EU Countries.”
Around 40 delegates attended the event