We examine an energy conservation program that instills both pecuniary and nonpecuniary incentives using a tournament among peer military households. Under the tournament, households only pay for the electricity that exceeds 110 percent of a peer-group average and receive a rebate for each kilowatt-hour below 90 percent of the peer-group average. Prior to the program, no household paid for electricity. We evaluate the impacts of the program in two ways. First, we use difference-in-differences to estimate how the program affected electricity use for those households who paid/received nothing throughout the program in comparison to those who received payments or rebates. Second, we examine how arguably exogenous changes in the peer-group average, driven by entry and exit of households, affected subsequent electricity use by continuing households. Our main result indicates that the interaction between monetary incentives and behavioral factors makes the peer comparison more powerful and dominates consumer responses.

Following Graff Zivin and Neidell (2014), this paper addresses reallocation of time spent by humans doing activities due to global warming under the Great Recession effects. Time allocated to leisure activities is responsive in the cold weather but not in the warm weather. Time allocated to working is not significantly responsive to temperature changes, neither in cold nor warm weather. In addition, although the unemployment rates increased remarkably during the Great Recession, there is no statistically significant effects of the recession on the relationship between temperature and time allocation.

This technical report summarizes how neighborhood housing price appreciation can impact the quality of life beyond individual-level impacts. Using the ZTRAX database provided by Zillow, Gallup data and American Community Survey data for Hawaii in the period of 2008-2017, we develop plausibly unbiased housing measures, especially price appreciation and sales volume curves, for each area. We then examine whether the variation in those housing measures are independently associated with the well-being net of individual characteristics. Our main findings indicate that areas with high housing prices contain happier people, but only because those people are more wealthy. Besides, people who have just relocated into a neighborhood seem to be happier than those who have been there for some time. We find a negative association between increasing housing prices and well-being although data limitations restrict our ability to assert a null effect.

Natural gas has been considered a bridge fuel between coal and renewable energy in the energy transition. Since 2005, coal-to-gas switching has been the largest driver of electricity sector CO2 emission reductions, accounting for 61% of the total in 2019 (cumulative 3,351 MMmt, EIA’s data). However, natural gas is still a carbon-emitting energy source and will be substituted by 2050 under the U.S.’s net-zero emissions plan. Natural gas infrastructure assets today thus will likely be stranded in the future. The consequences of massive stranded asset costs might delay the energy transition progress in the long run. Besides, on the regulatory side, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been criticized for the combination of two reasons (1) approving a new interstate pipeline project based on self-dealing contracts between pipeline companies and theirs affiliated shippers as proof of market needs, and (2) offering an above-risk rate of return to pipeline companies. Such projects cause the inherent risk-shifting from pipeline companies to captive customers who are imposed with substantial reservation costs regardless of whether their gas utility uses the pipeline capacity. This paper contributes to the ongoing regulatory debate by examining the efficiency of the current natural gas pipeline network in the contiguous U.S. In addition, we provide a model-based project evaluation method that will be useful to assess the need for a new natural gas interstate pipeline on the pathway to net-zero emissions. The preliminary results show that the U.S. had built too many pipelines and slightly less storage than necessary. Pipelines had been overbuilt in some regions while under-invested in others. The model solution suggests that building additional storage is more efficient than building more pipelines in some states. Besides, investing in gas storage rather than pipelines also supports energy security in extreme weather events.

Since the implementation of Vietnam’s economic renovation or ‘Doi Moi’ policy in 1986, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) urban has grown quickly. However, this also leads to an increase in inequality. Its peri-urban area, which undergoes a higher level of urbanization than an urban area, faces more problems such as land-use change, inadequate development process, unequal allocation of services and investment, and ignorance of environmental protection and cultural preservation. These impacts show inequality in living conditions between residents of the peri-urban area and the urban area. Using the framework of the Peri-Urban Political-Ecology, this paper depicts a general picture of the situation and analyse the causes of social inequalities between these two areas in terms of economy, public services, and the environment through “everyday practices”. Using HCMC’s statistical data in the 2015-2017 period, we find that the main causes in inequalities between these two areas are the inevitability of urban metabolism and the unequal power interaction among the state, society and market.