No Californian Left Behind: Clean and Affordable Transportation Options for All Through Vehicle Replacement

As California focuses in on new, high-tech, best-in-class transportation strategies, it risks leaving behind an important subset of households and communities who could most benefit from the transition to a cleaner, cheaper, and more sustainable transportation future. Hundreds of thousands of low-income Californians, particularly those in rural parts of the state, live with some of the worst air pollution in the U.S. They also often drive relatively old, inefficient, unsafe, and highly polluting vehicles, and struggle to cover the costs of their basic transportation needs. For these Californians, getting into a relatively more efficient vehicle is more realistic than getting into a new electric vehicle, which is expensive, or onto public transit, which is often ineffective in serving rural and non-urban households.The state has recognized this problem and attempted to address it by focusing on vehicle repair and retirement programs. However, by merely repairing and retiring vehicles and not replacing them with cleaner, more efficient ones, existing programs do not maximize long-term air benefits or lessen the financial burden these inefficient vehicles currently place on low-income Californians. To help address this issue, Senate Bill 459, signed by Governor Brown in September 2013, directs the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to rewrite the guidelines of California's Enhanced Fleet Modernization Program (EFMP). This program has been in place since 2010, and is designed to allow residents who own the highest-emitting vehicles in the state to retire and/or replace them.In this report, we discuss the contribution made by these highly polluting vehicles to the state's air quality problems; we also discuss the serious drag that driving these vehicles can have on household budgets. After outlining these problems, we discuss the state's current policies aimed at promoting vehicle retirement and replacement and offer some recommendations for improving those programs.California is already a leader in advanced and high-tech transportation and transit solutions. It is time we also became a leader in pragmatic solutions for a population that is sometimes left behind in these discussions: non-urban, low-income, car-dependent households. Bringing solutions to these communities will have a huge impact on our current air quality and family budgets; it will also widen the circle of Californians who play an active part in moving this state toward a cleaner, less oil-dependent future

Post-Privatization Renegotiation and Disputes in Chile

Over the last decade, Chile has undertaken remarkable reforms and transferred publicly owned utilities to the private sector either by selling the assets or through concession agreements. Because of the reforms the country has been able to attract private participation in the provision of public services like energy, transportation, telecommunications, potable water and sewage. In this paper, the authors analyze a series of post-privatization disputes and renegotiations that have taken place in Chile since the late 1980s in the electricity sector. This sector was chosen because the privatization process was, to a large extent, completed a decade ago, providing enough time to properly evaluate negotiations and disputes. The paper also assesses how lessons learned in the reform of electricity were internalized in the design of the regulatory framework for other concessions.Public Utilities, Electricity, Private Sector, IFM-116, electricity sector, dispute renegotiation, Chile, infrastructure, privatization

Opportunistic Behavior and Legal Disputes in the Chilean Electricity Sector

In this paper I analyze post-contractual disputes in the newly privatized electricity sector in Chile. I discuss the presumption that opportunistic behavior and disputes arise due to inadequate market design, ambiguous regulation, and institutional weaknesses. I also assess the presumption that a large number of legal (public) disputes are inhibited by the nonexistence of institutions able to verify and enforce contracts. An in-depth analysis of 6 cases of open con‡ict provides support to such presumptions and highlights the crucial role of an adequate (preprivatization) market design. In addition, it concludes that the reduced number of open con‡icts observed in Chile is probably due to institutional weaknesses, which induces the parties to use private con‡ict resolution mechanisms.

Regulatory Policies and Reforms in the Power and Downstream Oil Industries

This paper looks at the regulatory reforms in the electricity and downstream oil industries, two important inputs to the production process that were heavily regulated by the government. While electricity has strong externalities as well as economies of scale and scope, the oil industry does not exhibit natural monopoly characteristics nor does it display economic features that would warrant government regulation. The paper also analyzes the economic theories underlying these reforms: why is regulation necessary, what are the different forms of regulation, and how can these policy reforms bring about competition? It also identifies the emerging issues and problems associated with the regulatory reforms. Given our little experience in the effective use of public regulation in a market-driven setting, research is needed to provide a deeper understanding of these issues within the context of our economic, institutional, and political structure. This is necessary in order to come up with possible approaches to overcome our weaknesses and shore up weak administrative and enforcement capacities.electricity and power, economic regulation, regulatory reform, downstream oil

Regulatory Policies and Reforms in the Power and Downstream Oil Industries

This paper looks at the regulatory reforms in the electricity and downstream oil industries, two important inputs to the production process that were heavily regulated by the government. While electricity has strong externalities as well as economies of scale and scope, the oil industry does not exhibit natural monopoly characteristics nor does it display economic features that would warrant government regulation. The paper also analyzes the economic theories underlying these reforms: why is regulation necessary, what are the different forms of regulation, and how can these policy reforms bring about competition? It also identifies the emerging issues and problems associated with the regulatory reforms. Given our little experience in the effective use of public regulation in a market-driven setting, research is needed to provide a deeper understanding of these issues within the context of our economic, institutional, and political structure. This is necessary in order to come up with possible approaches to overcome our weaknesses and shore up weak administrative and enforcement capacities.electricity and power, economic regulation, regulatory reform, downstream oil

The Economics of Competition Policy: Recent Developments and Cautionary Notes in Antitrust and Regulation

Competition policy has become more prominent while the thinking underlying those policies has undergone substantial revision. We survey advances in antitrust economics and the economics of regulation. Increasing reliance on non-cooperative game theory as a foundation for antitrust has led to rethinking conventional approaches. We review some of these contributions in the context of mergers, vertical restraints, and competition in "network industries." Turning to regulation, we review standard rationales and identify some major contemporary refinements, with examples of the motives behind them and their application. After brief thoughts on privatization, we conclude with suggestions on design and implementation, with some observations on whether these developments are as valuable in the corridors of policy as they may be in the halls of academe.

Exploring computational power markets with evolutionary algorithms

The recent deregulation of the electric industry in the United States opened some sectors of the power market to competition. This work addresses a computational restructured wholesale electricity market. The goal of the study is to model agent driven bilateral power market auctions where the players are represented by autonomous intelligent agents. Different aspects of the market are considered. Some of them are studies on structural and strategic market power of buyers and sellers varies with changes in relative concentration and relative capacity. Others are cases where players attempt to benefit from causing instabilities like brownouts and blackouts, as well as economic instabilities by applying different gaming strategies. Agents are modeled using various evolutionary programming techniques, such as reinforced learning, genetic algorithms and genetic programming. The results suggest that some of the solutions are suitable for robust industrial applications

The liberalisation of the energy sector in the EU.

Sector;