Papers

Download Paper Abstract This paper examines the implications of a carbon-constrained future on coal-reliant county governments in the United States. We review modeling projections of coal production and argue that some local governments face important revenue risks. Complex systems of revenue and intergovernmental transfersand insufficiently detailed budget data make it difficult to parse out how ex-posed jurisdictions are to the coal industry. A look at three illustrative counties shows that coal-related revenue may fund a third or more of their budgets....

Download Paper Abstract We use the 2017 National Household Travel Survey to investigate whether all-electric vehicles (EVs) are driven less than their counterfactual alternative in the US as hypothesized by Davis (2019). We find that selection effects reduce to a small degree the driving differential between EVs and gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. The dominant factor affecting annual miles driven is battery range. Once one limits the analysis to EVs with a range of 100 miles or more, the differences between EVs and internal combustion engine vehicles disappear....

Download Paper Abstract Germany, Japan and the United States are the three largest mature economies and set the productivity frontier in most industries. In aggregate, Germany caught up to US productivity by the 1990s but Japan remains well below the leaders and has the potential for faster growth. The article estimates the industry productivity leaders in the 1990s and whether lagging industries subsequently caught up to the leader. Germany lags the United States in some industries, like electronics, but has the advantage of worker training programs....