This paper studies the knowledge spillovers generated by renewable energy technologies, unraveling the technological fields that benefit from knowledge developed in storage, solar, wind, marine, hydropower, geothermal, waste and biomass energy technologies. Using citation data of patents in renewable technologies at 17 European countries over the 1978-2006 period, the analysis examines the relative importance of knowledge flows within the same specific technological field (intra-technology spillovers), to other technologies in the field of power-generation (inter-technology spillovers), and to technologies unrelated to power-generation (external-technology spillovers). The results show significant differences across various renewable technologies. While wind technologies mainly find applications within their own technological field, a large share of innovations in solar energy and storage technologies find applications outside the field of power generation, suggesting that solar technologies are more general and, therefore, may have a higher value for society. Finally, the knowledge from waste and biomass technologies is mainly exploited by fossil-fuel power-generating technologies. The paper discusses the implications of these results for the design of R&D policies for renewable energy innovation.

This paper discusses policy instruments for redirecting technical change within the electricity sector to mitigate climate change. First, we unravel the mechanism behind directed technical change, explaining why markets may underprovide innovations in expensive renewable technologies in comparison to innovations in energy-efficient fossil-fuel generators. Subsequently, we characterize technical change in electricity generation technologies, stressing the heterogeneity of knowledge spillovers both within and between clean electricity generation technologies. We argue that there exists a rationale for a portfolio approach to innovation in the electricity sector, i.e., optimal innovation policies are neither fully generic nor fully specific; and they need to be adapted, in response to new information learned by the government. The existing innovation literature does not, however, provide a clear-cut answer for designing such a policy. We compare policy instruments and argue that public R&D support to clean technologies, either in the form of subsidies or prizes, seems to be the prime candidate for implementing non-generic innovation policy.

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This paper applies insights from the economic literature to evaluate costs and benefits of the policy decision recently taken by the Dutch government to introduce ownership separation between energy distribution on the one hand, and production and retail on the other. The major benefit of this measure is that it enables the privatisation of commercial activities if the infrastructure has to remain in public hands. This benefit can, however, also be realised by more efficient ways, such as improving the corporate governance structure. The other benefits arise from improved network performance, efficiency of regulatory activity and increased competition. The realisation of these results is, of course, not a free lunch. Ownership unbundling reduces economies of scope, creates one-off transaction costs, and may also affect investments in generation by the currently vertically integrated Dutch utility holdings. We conclude that mainly because of the uncertainty about the future role of small-scale generation and the uncertainty about the magnitude of the one-off transaction costs related to the cross-border leases, the net effect on welfare of ownership unbundling is ambiguous.

This paper recovers micro cost schedules of consumers' payment instruments from aggregate transaction costs. We assume that only two moments of the size distribution of payments matter: the number and volume of transactions. These variables explain the transaction costs of currency and debit card payments with much precision for a representative 1998 sample of Dutch retailers. The results imply that low fixed transaction costs favor currency for small transactions, while low variable transaction costs favor debit card payments for large transactions. The switch point is 30 Euros, but including the hidden costs of currency would lower it to 13 Euros.

The paper presents a study of the total factor productivity (TFP) performance among developed countries between 1985 and 1990. The analysis includes the three large economies: the US, Japan and Europe. A general equilibrium model of these economies is used to estimate TFP growth at the sectoral and at the aggregate levels. The model is based on the fundamentals of the economies and employs only data on input-output flows, factor inputs across sectors, consumption and trade patterns and endowments. Prices are endogenous in the model. They are obtained as shadow prices from the model's linear program and then used to measure TFP growth and decompose it in a technical change effect, a demand effect and a terms-of-trade effect. The technical change effect is highly correlated with the conventional Solow residual measure. This result lends support to the standard measure of technological change.Total Factor Productivity Growth, Input-OUTPUT Tables, Equilibrium,

In this paper we estimate health plan price elasticities and financial switching gains for consumers over a 20-year period in which managed competition was introduced in the Dutch health insurance market. The period is characterized by a major health insurance reform in 2006 to provide health insurers with more incentives and tools to compete, and to provide consumers with a more differentiated choice of products. Prior to the reform, in the period 1995–2005, we find a low number of switchers, between 2 and 4% a year, modest average total switching gains of 2 million euros per year and short-term health plan price elasticities ranging from −0.1 to −0.4. The major reform in 2006 resulted in an all-time high switching rate of 18%, total switching gains of 130 million euros, and a high short-term price elasticity of −5.7. During 2007–2015 switching rates returned to lower levels, between 4 and 8% per year, with total switching gains in the order of 40 million euros per year on average. Total switching gains could have been 10 times higher if all consumers had switched to one of the cheapest plans. We find short-term price elasticities ranging between −0.9 and −2.2. Our estimations suggest substantial consumer inertia throughout the entire period, as we find degrees of choice persistence ranging from about 0.8 to 0.9.