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March 2020

VIOS

Virtual Industrial Organization Seminar (VIOS)

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The CEPR, together with a group of Industrial Organization Economists in Europe, are launching a new initiative: the CEPR Virtual Industrial Organization Seminar (VIOS).  VIOS provides a short-run alternative to IO seminars cancelled due to travel restrictions brought on by the Coronavirus. The long-run goal, however, is to turn it into a permanent platform for sharing the benefits of regular IO seminars.  Seminars will be balanced between both theoretical and empirical approaches to IO.

The first seminar will be on Wednesday 8th April 2020, at 4:00 p.m. CET. The speaker will be Chiara Farronato (HBS).  Details including seminar rules, upcoming speakers, paper downloads, etc. are available on the VIOS website:  https://sites.google.com/view/virtual-io-seminar/.

In some ways, VIOS is European:  in its scheduling, in its affiliation with the CEPR, and in the composition of its scientific committee. For participation, however, it is international:  any interested IO scholar is welcome to join.

On behalf of Özlem Bedre-Folie, Daniel Ershov, Natalia Fabra, Rachel Griffith, Alessandro Iaria, Gerard Llobet, and Nicolas Schutz (VIOS Organizing/Scientific committee)

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With #Energy, despite COVID19

We are living difficult times. All of a sudden, COVID has stopped our lives. At EnergyEcoLab we are all safe working from home, but we are all still full of #Energy.

Last Friday, Fundación Renovables decided to organise an energy event from home. Four energy experts were interviewed: Joan Groizard (Director of IDAE), José Bogas (CEO of Endesa), Natalia Fabra (Head of EnergyEco Lab) and Fernando Ferrando (President of Fundacion Renovables). They answered the questions that the energy community had been sending by twitter over the week. Questions ranged from the effects of COVID on the electricity sector, to the role that energy companies can play during this crisis, to the new norms that the government plans to send to Parliament right after the end of the lock-in.

Natalia Fabra argued that COVID is having a strong impact on electricity demand in Spain, which has fallen more than 10% since the start of the lock-in. The 20% reduction in electricity demand seen in Italy could be around the corner. As a key indicator of economic activity, this reflects that the Spanish economy has started to slow down. Depending on the scope and breath of the policies implemented by the national and supra-national governments, this shock could have long lasting effects in terms of unemployment and firm exit.

The reduction in electricity demand will depress electricity prices, as the weight of renewables in the energy mix goes up. This will bring good news to households and large energy consumers, but will put cost recovery by the renewable investments at risk. With and without COVID, it is urgent to rethink how to pay for renewable output in ways that allow them to break even despite the predicted reduction in spot market prices. The new auction design that the authorities plan to implement soon – i.e., bidders will compete to have the right to provide renewable energy at a fixed price, to be determined competitively –  should prove to be an efficient solution. Regarding the current discussion as to whether energy companies should be nationalised, Natalia Fabra believes that the focus should be put in designing a good regulation rather than on the public versus private ownership debate.

The video of the event (in Spanish) can be seen here.

The transcript can be dowloaded here.

Stay safe! #EnCasaPorTodos

Natalia Fabra also participated in another web seminar, organized by UNEF. The speakers discussed about the electricity market reforms. The video can be seen here.

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MIMA-CM Research Grant

The Regional Government of Madrid (CAM) has awarded a three-year research grant to the consortium made up of four academic institutions: CSIC, CEMFI, Carlos IIII and Complutense.

The name of the project is MIMA-CM, that stands for Markets, Innovation and the Environment. The objective of the grant is to study four essential aspects for new models of capital attraction and employment from the economic point of view: incentives for innovation, the energy transition, the competition, and regulation.

The group at Carlos III is composed of researchers in the area of Industrial Organization, including Natalia Fabra, Georges Siotis, Alan Crawford and Imelda.

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Celebrating Women´s Day

To celebrate the 2020 International Women‘s Day, the European Research Council has gathered articles and posts on excellent research from women, science communication initiated by women and ERC funded research on gender related issues at http://bit.ly/2wDEMSr

We are happy to share this video with you featuring ERC researchers, including Natalia Fabra @energyecolab

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2nd PhD Summer School on “Economic Foundations for Energy and Climate Policies”

 

Given the current COVID situation we have decided to postpone the PhD Summer School on “Economic Foundations for Energy and Climate Policies” until September 2021. More information will be provided on the website and a new call for submissions will be published next year.

We are pleased to announce that we will be organizing the second edition of the PhD Summer School on “Economic Foundations for Energy and Climate Policies”, which is jointly promoted by DIW Berlin, EUI-Florence School of Regulation, Technical University Berlin, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, University College London and Université Libre de Bruxelles. The School will combine lectures and policy sessions by leading researchers and policy makers in the field.

The Summer School will be held on September 7-11, 2020 at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Downtown campus at Puerta de Toledo)

Confirmed instructors:

  • Stefan Ambec (Toulouse School of Economics): “Intermittency of Renewable Energy: Implications for Electricity Markets”
  • Estelle Cantillon (Université Libre de Bruxelles): “Design and Development of the EU’s ETS”
  • Xavier Labandeira (Universidade de Vigo): “A Primer on Environmental Taxes and Green Tax Reforms”
  • Juan Pablo Montero (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile): “Environmental Regulation and the Transport Sector”, and “The Design of Environmental Instruments”

The main objective of the School is to provide PhD students in Economics with high-level academic training on the micro-economic foundations of energy and climate policies. The School is also aimed at supporting the development of a PhD-student network for students interested in the topic, and connect them with top academics in the field.