CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Hecker, Michael Anthony |
|---|---|
| Title | RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARDS: STATE LEVEL EFFECTIVENESS |
| Summary | This thesis investigates the relationship between U.S. renewable energy policy and the amount of renewable energy generation and capacity within the country. Specifically, this thesis examines state Renewable Portfolio Standards and the levels of renewable electricity generation and capacity within a state. In addition the paper attempts to address the recently proposed topic regarding a national Renewable Portfolio. The literature up to date has not been conclusive, or used data sets spanning a significant amount of years. The Data for the empirical estimation mostly comes from the Energy Information Administration, and was obtained for 1990-2012, for each state. Applied to this larger dataset, the fixed effects estimation procedure can account for a large set of state and year characteristics, as well as looking for a differential effect across states. This study finds that, on average, RPS programs were not effective over the time period examines. However, the potential reasons for this non-effect vary, and the author argues in favor that the non-effect could be caused by federal level programs which were in place during the time period in question. Overall, the paper finds evidence that a national Renewable Portfolio Standard is not an advisable policy solution to increase renewable energy generation and capacity in the future and that lawmakers should instead focus on federal level tax incentives. |
| Supervisor | Lieli, Robert |
| Department | Economics MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/hecker_michael.pdf |
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