Energy use patterns in German manufacturing since 2003

The manufacturing sector accounts for a substantial share of German GDP, employment and carbon emissions. Therefore, the manufacturing sector's energy use and carbon emissions are of crucial importance for reaching Germany's climate goals. In this paper, we analyse energy use patterns in German manufacturing between 2003 and 2014, using rich administrative micro-data. We find that although the manufacturing sector has been faced with rising energy costs as a share of total costs, energy use has not declined except briefly during the economic crisis. We also find that energy intensity in the manufacturing sector has not decreased substantially. In contrast, carbon intensity has fallen slightly between 2003 and 2014. This can be attributed to changes in the fuel mix

The amenity cost of road noise

This article reports a complete two stage hedonic analysis for road noise. For the estimation of the hedonic price function I develop a spatial research design which simultaneously reduces the risk of omitted variable bias and the risk of measurement error in the noise measure. The preference parameters are identified following the approach developed in Bajari and Benkard (2005) by using a simple functional form for utility. Preferences are very heterogeneous and observable demographic characteristics explain 30 percent of the variation in taste for quiet. Results are used to discuss willingness to pay for noise reductions from two policy measures

Does the stick make the carrot more attractive? State mandates and uptake of renewable heating technologies

In this paper, we investigate the effect of the state-level renewable heating mandate for existing homes in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's third largest federal state. The mandate requires homeowners to supply at least 10 % of their heat demand with renewable energy when they replace their existing heating system. To assess the impact of the renewable heating standard on the uptake of renewable heating systems, we use unique data on a federal government subsidy scheme and exploit geographic differences in state laws over time. We find no evidence of an effect of the mandate even after restricting distance to the state border and refining the data set through matching on population and building characteristics. These findings are unchanged, when we allow effects to vary across space or over time. While energy efficiency and renewable standards are often criticized for not being cost-effective, our results challenge the widespread view that a standard is nevertheless successful in achieving its policy goal

The Effect of Emission Information on Housing Prices in Germany

In this paper, we study the effect of the release of emission information on housing prices. The main event under study is the release of the first wave of data from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) publishing emission quantities for the reporting year 2007. We base our analysis on quarterly house prices at the German postal code level for the years 2004-2011 and provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first analysis outside the US on this research question. We estimate a differences-in-differences model and find no significant effect of the release of emission information on the value of houses in affected postal code areas when controlling for observable differences in land use, prevalence of housing types, tax revenues and other postal code area characteristics by means of propensity score matching. This result survives several robustness checks. We conclude that disclosing the first wave of E-PRTR emissions had no robust impact on housing prices

Gone with the wind: The effect of air pollution on crime - evidence from Germany

Recent evidence suggests a positive impact of air pollution on crime in large cities. We provide first evidence on the potential effect of air pollution on criminal activity using a broader set of geographical regions with lower air pollution levels. We use a unique combination of daily crime data with weather and emission records for the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg (BW) and Rhineland-Palatinate (RLP) in Germany from 2015 until 2017. We exploit the variation in air pollution which is attributable to changes in daily wind direction. We find that an increase of one standard deviation of PM10 leads to an increase in crime of 4.6%

State mandates on renewable heating technologies and the housing market

We study the effect of a state level mandate on renewable heating technologies on the housing market. The mandate requires a minimum share of 10 % renewable energy sources when changing the heating system in the existing building stock. As renewable energy sources are still more expensive than conventional alternatives this mandate could lower the relative price of homes in the existing building stock when a replacement of the heating system is impending. We implement a two stage difference-in-differences nearest neighbor matching approach to identify the effect on prices taking advantage of differences in regulation by location and vintage of the building stock. Our results find no evidence of an effect of the mandate on housing prices

Do manufacturing plants respond to exogenous changes in electricity prices? Evidence from administrative micro-data

Climate policy often implies increasing energy prices. Due to incomplete regulation across the globe, concerns about their competitiveness and employment effects play an important role in the policy debate. Using micro-data on electricity network charges and the official census data for Germany, we study the impact of rising electricity costs on plant performance in German Manufacturing. Electricity network charges are determined through regulation in Germany and therefore exogenous to manufacturing plants, while making up a substantial share of final electricity prices. Our estimates imply a negative own-price elasticity of electricity of -0.4 to -0.6 in the short-run: A one cent increase in average network charges leads to a decrease in electricity procurement of roughly 3 %. There is suggestive evidence that this elasticity of response is decreasing over time, in line with nonlinearly increasing marginal abatement costs. Generally, we do not find significant effects on revenues, investments or capital stocks

Wärmewende im Gebäudesektor: Lasst den CO2-Preis wirken

Über 80 Prozent des Endenergieverbrauchs der Haushalte in Deutschland wird für Raumwärme und Warmwasser verwendet. Da die Mehrheit der installierten Heizsysteme nach wie vor auf fossilen Energieträgern basiert, trägt der Gebäudesektor substanziell zu den nationalen Treibhausgasemissionen bei. Im vergangenen Jahr waren es rund 117 Mio. t CO2-Äquivalente. Bis zum Jahr 2030 soll der Ausstoß laut Klimaschutzplan 2050 auf 72 Mio. t CO2 reduziert werden, 2050 soll der Gebäudesektor nahezu klimaneutral sein. Angesichts sehr langer Investitionszyklen bei Gebäuden sind das ambitionierte Ziele. Um diese zu erreichen, setzt die Bundesregierung in ihrem neuen Klimaschutzprogramm auf eine Kombination von Förderprogrammen, Ordnungsrecht, einer CO2-Bepreisung sowie Information und Beratung. Das einzig wirklich Neue in diesem Maßnahmenpaket ist die Einführung einer expliziten Bepreisung von CO2-Emissionen, die nicht unter dem EU Emissionshandelssystem (EHS) reguliert werden – ein Schritt, der von Ökonomen lange gefordert wurde. Leider lassen es die Pläne der Bundesregierung nicht zu, dass die CO2-Bepreisung kurzfristig ihr volles Potenzial entfalten kann. Dieses ZEW policy brief liefert eine kritische Einordnung des Klimaschutzprogramms im Gebäudesektor. Anhand aktueller Erkenntnisse der Wirtschaftsforschung diskutiert es Nachteile von Förderprogrammen und ordnungsrechtlichen Maßnahmen und zeigt zugleich künftigen Forschungsbedarf auf

Effects of information-based regulation on financial outcomes: Evidence from the European Union's public emission registry

Information-based policies play an important role in environmental protection efforts around the world. These policies use information provision and/or disclosure to shape behavior in order to meet the policy objective; for example, mandatory information disclosure requires firms to measure and report their pollutant emissions. This study investigates the influence of a particular information-based policy – the European Union’s mandatory and public emission registry of polluting facilities – on financial outcomes of German firms: revenues, costs, and profits. Using detailed firm-level data for the years 1998 to 2016, we exploit size- and pollution-specific reporting thresholds to isolate the effect of this policy. We compare firms that own facilities required to report in the first EPER wave with similar firms that do not own such facilities. For this comparison, we deploy both a difference-in-differences design and an event study. Our findings suggest that the introduction of EPER in 2001 increased both operating revenues and expenditures, yielding a neutral impact on the operating profits of affected firms. These results support neither of the two competing hypotheses regarding financial outcomes: costly regulation hypothesis and Porter Hypothesis