Catherine D. Wolfram | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Micro-economist, academic and researcher |
Spouse | Matthew A Barmack [1] |
Academic background | |
Education | A.B., Economics Ph.D., Economics |
Alma mater | Harvard University MIT |
Thesis | "Empirical Studies of the British Electricity Industry Before and After Privatization" |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Joskow |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Haas School of Business,University of California,Berkeley |
Website | catherine-wolfram |
Catherine D. Wolfram is an American micro-economist,academic,and researcher who is the William Barton Rogers Professor in Energy and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. [2] Previously,she served as a Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration and associate dean for academic affairs at the Haas School of Business at University of California,Berkeley [3] where she also served as a faculty director of The E2e Project and as scientific director for energy and the environment at Center for Effective Global Action. She also directed the National Bureau of Economic Research's Environment and Energy Economics Program. [4]
In March 2021,Wolfram was named as the United States Department of the Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics. [5]
Wolfram specializes in the economics of energy industries in the U.S. and other countries. She has worked on analyzing rural electrification programs in the developing world,the effects of environmental regulation on energy markets,and on developing statistical measures for improving business and policy decisions. [6]
Wolfram is a faculty affiliate at J-PAL,and a senior policy scholar for Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. [7]
Wolfram studied economics and received her bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1989 and her doctoral degree from MIT in 1996. [8]
Wolfram became an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University in 1996. In 2000,she left Harvard University and joined UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business as an assistant professor and was later promoted to associate professor in 2005. Wolfram was appointed as a Cora Jane Flood Professor of Business Administration at Haas School of Business in 2013,a role she held until June 2023. [3] Wolfram was also a visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School from October 2022 to June 2023. [9]
At UC Berkeley,Wolfram was appointed as faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas in 2009,and as a faculty director of E2e Project in 2013. [10] She also served as a scientific director for energy and the environment at Berkeley's Center for Effective Global Action. [3] [11]
In 2016,Wolfram was appointed as a program director of the environmental and energy economics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. [4]
At UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business,she also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs initially in an acting capacity from July 2018 to June 2019,and then in a regular capacity from July 2019 to February 2021. [9] [12]
Wolfram's work is focused on economics of energy industries. She has conducted numerous research projects focusing on energy and environmental economics. She has worked on analyzing rural electrification programs in the developing world, [13] energy efficiency programs in the US,the effects of environmental regulation on energy markets,and on developing statistical measures for improving business and policy decisions. Wolfram's later work focuses on randomized controlled trials regarding the energy policy in both developed and developing countries. [14]
Wolfram studied the bidding behavior regarding the daily electricity auction in U.K.,and found that bidding applies to all infra-marginal units if set at a high equilibrium price. [15] She published a paper in the late 1990s on an empirical study on Britain's electricity industry,and derived price-cost markup estimates via approaches not relying on cost data. Her study indicated that prices were lower than the range predicted by the theoretical models,and highlighted various factors for the price levels. [16]
Wolfram studied the work of Fred Kahn and discussed the technological advancements in the energy industry along with the constraints regarding proliferation of time-varying electricity pricing. [17] In late 2010s,she published an article about the Weatherization Assistance Program and found the upfront investment costs to be twice the actual value of the energy savings. [18]
Wolfram has conducted a number of studies regarding energy demand in the developing world. She argued that the forecasts for energy demand in the emerging economies of the world are understated and that these countries will play a major role in driving medium-run growth in energy consumption. [19]
Wolfram conducted a study on electrification for under grid households in rural Kenya. [20] She provided evidence for low electrification rates despite the investments in grid infrastructure. [21]
Wolfram published a paper in 1999 regarding the duopoly power in the British electricity spot market and presented the results of an empirical study that indicated the prices to be higher than the marginal costs but still lower than the range predicted by most theoretical models. She also provided possible explanations for the observed price levels. [22]
In mid 2000s,Wolfram authored a paper assessing the impact of electricity industry restructuring on generating plant operating efficiency using the plant-level data. Her study indicated that the largest reductions in nonfuel operating expenses and employment were experienced by the investor-owned utility plants in restructured environments. [23] Wolfram's study on cost minimization in regulated environments indicated modest medium-term efficiency benefits from replacing regulated monopoly with a market-based industry structure. [24]
Wolfram entered public service in March 2021 when she was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics at the United States Department of the Treasury,where she served until October 2022. [9] [25] During her tenure at the U.S. Treasury Department,Wolfram was instrumental in the development and implementation of a global oil price cap on Russian crude oil,set at $60 per barrel,in response to Russian invasion of Ukraine. [26] The measure was a novel sanctioning tool that aimed to simultaneously maintain Russian oil in the global market while cutting its revenues,a dual strategy that proved successful. [26] Wolfram,who specializes in energy economics,was integral in formulating this approach. [26]
This aims to be a complete article list of economics topics:
Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Considering the cost of energy services and associated value gives economic meaning to the efficiency at which energy can be produced. Energy services can be defined as functions that generate and provide energy to the “desired end services or states”. The efficiency of energy services is dependent on the engineered technology used to produce and supply energy. The goal is to minimise energy input required to produce the energy service, such as lighting (lumens), heating (temperature) and fuel. The main sectors considered in energy economics are transportation and building, although it is relevant to a broad scale of human activities, including households and businesses at a microeconomic level and resource management and environmental impacts at a macroeconomic level.
An energy crisis or energy shortage is any significant bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In literature, it often refers to one of the energy sources used at a certain time and place, in particular, those that supply national electricity grids or those used as fuel in industrial development. Population growth has led to a surge in the global demand for energy in recent years. In the 2000s, this new demand – together with Middle East tension, the falling value of the US dollar, dwindling oil reserves, concerns over peak oil, and oil price speculation – triggered the 2000s energy crisis, which saw the price of oil reach an all-time high of $147.30 per barrel ($926/m3) in 2008.
William Jack Baumol was an American economist. He was a professor of economics at New York University, Academic Director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He was a prolific author of more than eighty books and several hundred journal articles. He is the namesake of the Baumol effect.
In economics, a government monopoly or public monopoly is a form of coercive monopoly in which a government agency or government corporation is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is a monopoly created, owned, and operated by the government. It is usually distinguished from a government-granted monopoly, where the government grants a monopoly to a private individual or company.
Energy policies are the government's strategies and decisions regarding the production, distribution, and consumption of energy within a specific jurisdiction. Energy is essential for the functioning of modern economies because they require energy for many sectors, such as industry, transport, agriculture, housing. The main components of energy policy include legislation, international treaties, energy subsidies and other public policy techniques.
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), also known as Green tags, Renewable Energy Credits, Renewable Electricity Certificates, or Tradable Renewable Certificates (TRCs), are tradable, non-tangible energy certificates in the United States that represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource and was fed into the shared system of power lines which transport energy. Solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) are RECs that are specifically generated by solar energy.
Michael Robert Kremer is an American development economist currently serving as University Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago and Director of the Development Innovation Lab at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. Kremer formerly served as the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard University, a role he held from 2003 to 2020. In 2019, Kremer was jointly awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."
In developing countries and some areas of more developed countries, energy poverty is lack of access to modern energy services in the home. In 2022, 759 million people lacked access to consistent electricity and 2.6 billion people used dangerous and inefficient cooking systems. Their well-being is negatively affected by very low consumption of energy, use of dirty or polluting fuels, and excessive time spent collecting fuel to meet basic needs.
In energy conservation and energy economics, the rebound effect is the reduction in expected gains from new technologies that increase the efficiency of resource use, because of behavioral or other systemic responses. These responses diminish the beneficial effects of the new technology or other measures taken. A definition of the rebound effect is provided by Thiesen et al. (2008) as, “the rebound effect deals with the fact that improvements in efficiency often lead to cost reductions that provide the possibility to buy more of the improved product or other products or services.” A classic example from this perspective is a driver who substitutes a vehicle with a fuel-efficient version, only to reap the benefits of its lower operating expenses to commute longer and more frequently."
Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural development and finance attempt to solve larger challenges within rural economics. These economic issues are often connected to the migration from rural areas due to lack of economic activities and rural poverty. Some interventions have been very successful in some parts of the world, with rural electrification and rural tourism providing anchors for transforming economies in some rural areas. These challenges often create rural-urban income disparities.
David Hibbard Romer is an American economist, the Herman Royer Professor of Political Economy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of a standard textbook in graduate macroeconomics as well as many influential economic papers, particularly in the area of New Keynesian economics. He is also the husband and close collaborator of Council of Economic Advisers former Chairwoman Christina Romer.
Ulrike M. Malmendier is a German economist who is currently a professor of economics and finance at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on behavioral economics, corporate finance, and law and economics. In 2013, she was awarded the Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association.
Robin Burgess is a British economist who is Professor of Economics, Co-founder and Director of the International Growth Centre, as well as Co-Founder and Director of the Economics of Energy and the Environment (EEE) program at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The economics of digitization is the field of economics that studies how digitization, digitalisation and digital transformation affects markets and how digital data can be used to study economics. Digitization is the process by which technology lowers the costs of storing, sharing, and analyzing data. This has changed how consumers behave, how industrial activity is organized, and how governments operate. The economics of digitization exists as a distinct field of economics for two reasons. First, new economic models are needed because many traditional assumptions about information no longer hold in a digitized world. Second, the new types of data generated by digitization require new methods for their analysis.
Emi Nakamura is a Canadian-American economist. She is the Chancellor's Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. Nakamura is a research associate and co-director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a co-editor of the American Economic Review.
Michael Greenstone is an American economist and the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, the College, and the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He serves as director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), director of the Becker Friedman Institute, and co-chair of the Energy and Environment sector at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). Under the first Obama administration, he served as chief economist on the Council of Economic Advisors. His research interests focus on the nexus between development economics and environmental economics.
Lars-Hendrik Röller is a German economist who served as the Director General for Economic and Financial Policy at the German Chancellery from 2011 to 2022, a position that made him Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief economic advisor. He previously was the president of the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin. In 2002, he was awarded the Gossen Prize in recognition for his contributions to empirical industrial economics.
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