The concern of Russian gas supply disruption and its implications has never been as serious. Chloé Le Coq, Professor at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (CRED) and a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), discusses how nudging energy consumers to lower their demand may support the plans of the European Commission (EC).

SITE and NES (New Economic School) researchers investigate how multinational firms manage their relationships with governments under the threat of expropriation. Exploring micro data from the oil and gas industry worldwide, they show that the multinationals delay investment, production and tax payments by more than five years in countries with weak institutions relative to countries with strong ones. These findings are consistent with the theory suggesting that delaying rents to the government in absence of formal enforcement could decrease the risk of expropriation.

The recent record-high gas prices have triggered legitimate concerns regarding the EU’s energy security, especially with dependence on natural gas from Russia. This brief discusses the historical and current risks associated with Russian gas imports. SITE researchers Chloé Le Coq and Elena Paltseva argue that decreasing the reliance on Russian gas may not be feasible in the short-to-mid-run, especially with the EU’s goals of green transition and the electrification of the economy. To ensure the security of natural gas supply from Russia, the EU has to adopt the (long-proclaimed) coordinated energy policy strategy.

The need for urgent climate action and energy transformation away from fossil fuels is widely acknowledged. Yet, current country plans for emission reductions do not reach the requirements to contain global warming under 2°C. What is worse, there is even reasonable doubt about the commitment to said plans given recent history and existing future investment plans into fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure development. This policy brief shortly summarizes the presentations and discussions at the SITE Development Day Conference, held on December 8, 2021, focusing on climate change policies and the challenge of a green energy transition in Eastern Europe.

Policy brief: As the dramatic consequences of climate change are starting to unfold, addressing the intermittency of low-carbon energy sources, such as solar and wind, is crucial. The obvious solution to intermittency is energy storage. However, its constraints and implications are far from trivial. Developing and facilitating energy storage is associated with technological difficulties as well as economic and regulatory problems that need to be addressed to spur investments and foster competition. With these issues in mind, the annual Energy Talk, organized by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, invited three experts to discuss the challenges and opportunities of energy storage.

This year’s SITE Energy Talks – Energy Demand Management: Insights from Behavioral Economics, was devoted to discussing how consumers make energy efficiency decisions and what incentives can be used to change consumer behaviour.

Thomas Sterner, Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Gothenburg, gave a presentation on technological development, geopolitical and environmental issues in our energy future at SITE Energy Talks, concerning the rapidly increasing level of carbon content, new technological development, the impact of low oil prices and the most promising ways to stop emissions.

The 11th SITE Energy Talks on the 24th of October will be devoted to discussing the technological development of energy industry and, geopolitical and environmental challenges in our energy future.

by Chloé Le Coq (with Henrik Orzen and Sebastian Schwenen), published in the Journal of Regulatory Economics

On November 5 Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) hosted 9th Energy Day - Economic Impacts of Oil Price Fluctuations. Conference presentations on the volatility of oil price forecasts, oil price fluctuations, new climate economy and other topics have been published for everyone interested in the energy field.