Energy Economics最新文献

The Russia–Ukraine conflict highlighted how important energy is for the surveillance of economies worldwide. Both war and economic sanctions inevitably affected energy-related commodity prices. Although shocks in energy commodities are known to have an effect on financial stability, this information is not included in existing financial stability indicators. In this paper, we first provide empirical evidence on the existing relationship between energy-related commodities and financial stability in the EU, UK and US, as well as their importance in the forecast of economic downturns. Based on this evidence, we propose a new composite indicator of financial stability which incorporates relevant information from the energy markets. The suitability of the new composite indicator is assessed by its ability to track financial, economic, and energy crises.

This study employed the structural oil price decomposition method proposed by Ready (2018) to decompose oil price shocks into oil risk shocks, demand shocks, and supply shocks. By using the Diebold and Yilmaz (DY) spillover index and rolling window methods, the static and dynamic spillovers of structural oil price shocks on financial market uncertainty were examined. The findings suggest that oil risk shocks exhibited the strongest spillover effects on financial market uncertainty (except for South Africa), followed by oil demand shocks, while oil supply shocks had virtually no impact. Second, the effects of structural oil price shocks on financial market uncertainty were time-varying. Third, significant differences in the spillover effects of structural oil price shocks on financial market uncertainty were found across countries, and the spillover effect of oil risk shocks on the financial market uncertainty in the United States was the largest in all periods. Fourth, the spillover effects of oil demand shocks on financial market uncertainty were larger in the high than in the low oil price period (except for Japan). Finally, during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) pandemic compared with the pre-epidemic period, the spillover effects of oil risk shocks on the financial market uncertainty in China significantly decreased, while simultaneously, the spillover effects of oil supply shocks on the financial market uncertainty in Australia substantially increased.

In this paper, we establish a contingent claim framework for environmental management. The paper focuses on the vertical acquisition of a supply chain in the context of sustainable insurance (i.e., sustainable finance), specifically considering carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology choices and cap-and-trade regulations. The main results are as follows. Firstly, a more stringent cap-and-trade scheme increases equity efficiency in sustainable insurance, particularly when the green upstream manufacturer with advanced CCS technology acquires the brown downstream manufacturer, which also uses advanced CCS technology. Secondly, it harms risk efficiency, especially when the green upstream manufacturer with backward CCS technology acquires the brown downstream manufacturer, which uses advanced CCS technology. Thirdly, it increases the default risk in the insurer's equity, especially when the green upstream manufacturer with backward CCS technology acquires the brown downstream manufacturer, which also uses backward CCS technology. Overall, cap-and-trade's effects on equity and risk efficiency in vertical acquisition and default risk in insurer's equity within sustainable insurance depend on adopting CCS technology. Policymakers should incentivize advanced CCS technologies in vertical acquisitions to enhance equity and reduce default risks, supporting long-term financial stability and environmental sustainability toward Sustainable Development Goals.

The prohibition of open-air straw burning in China has been proved to be an effective measure for improving air quality and promoting straw utilization. However, the marketization and industrialization of straw utilization, or the commercialized development of “straw economy”, still faces several dilemmas. This paper constructed the tripartite evolutionary game model of farmers, straw utilization companies, and local governments, and analyzed the stability of equilibrium points to identify the strategic factors and influencing mechanisms among the stakeholders in straw industrialization. Moreover, numerical simulations are conducted to explore the effects of changes in key parameters and initial strategy selection on the evolution results under the market mechanism. The results showed that: (1) the optimal state of the tripartite evolutionary stability strategy of straw resource utilization is the formation of straw market, wherein farmers are inclined to vend straw, enterprises are eager to utilize it, and the government abstains from inducements. (2) farmers and straw utilization companies are highly sensitive to straw purchase prices and the other costs in straw utilization; (3) the evolutionary convergence of the strategy selection among the game subjects has shown an obvious interdependence. To promote the development of straw economy, the government ought to recalibrate policy instruments for the straw market temporally, sequentially implementing strategies encompassing subsidies, establishment of procurement depots, and commendation incentives.

Improving energy efficiency is vital for reducing energy consumption and can have substantial impacts on reducing carbon emissions. This study investigates the impact of sanctions on Iran's energy efficiency across different industrial sub-sectors from 2015 to 2019. We compute a sanction intensity index for each industrial sub-sector using principal component analysis. This index measures how much each sub-sector has been affected by sanctions. Additionally, energy efficiency is measured using the directional distance function method, considering the emission impacts as undesirable outputs. We use fixed effects regression analysis, adjusting for various manifestations of cross-sectional (spatial) and temporal dependence and controlling for other sectoral drivers of energy efficiency. We find a significant negative effect of sanction intensity on energy efficiency at the industrial sub-sector level in Iran. The negative effect of sanctions on energy efficiency is significantly larger for industrial units with higher import dependency.

In this paper we propose and develop the hypothesis that a transition to a green economy influences the consumption-smoothing component of the current account. This is important because green economy has the potential to improve current accounts. Using a sample of 23 countries, we discover that when renewable energy consumption as a share of total final energy consumption is below the threshold value of 23.561 %, there is a negative impact of oil prices on the current account. However, the negative impact diminishes when renewable consumption exceeds this threshold. Interestingly, splitting the sample into current account surplus and deficit countries reveals that a transition to a greener economy mitigates the negative impacts of an oil price rise more so for deficit countries than surplus countries.