IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v40y2013icp785-794.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impacts of the Clean Air Act on production cost, and the substitution between inputs in the electric utility industry

Author

Listed:
  • Førsund, Finn
  • Granderson, Gerald

Abstract

The paper examines how having to comply with Phase 1 of Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act affected production cost and the substitution between fuel and non-fuel (labor, capital) inputs. Phase 1 required firms to reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions. Enacting procedures to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions (using lower sulfur content coal or other fuel sources) could lead to higher cost, and impact the substitution between fuel and non-fuel inputs. Using a 1992-2000 panel of 34 U.S. electric utilities, empirical results indicate that the procedures electric utilities enacted to comply with Phase 1 contributed to small increases in both marginal cost and total cost. Firms having to comply with Phase 1 were more willing, than firms not subject to Phase 1, to substitute from fuel to non-fuel (labor, capital) inputs following an increase in the price of fuel. Utilities subject to Phase 1 that had a fuel clause were more willing, than Phase 1 firms without a fuel clause, to substitute from non-fuel inputs to fuel when the price of the non-fuel input increased.

Suggested Citation

  • Førsund, Finn & Granderson, Gerald, 2013. "The impacts of the Clean Air Act on production cost, and the substitution between inputs in the electric utility industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 785-794.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:40:y:2013:i:c:p:785-794
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2013.08.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988313001941
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2013.08.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2010. "Should the US clean air act include CO2 emission control?: Examination by data envelopment analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 5902-5911, October.
    2. Frank A. Scott Jr., 1985. "The Effect of a Fuel Adjustment Clause on a Regulated Firm's Selection of Inputs," The Energy Journal, , vol. 6(2), pages 117-126, April.
    3. C. A. Knox Lovell & Richard C. Morey, 1991. "The Allocation of Consumer Incentives to Meet Simultaneous Sales Quotas: An Application to U.S. Army Recruiting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(3), pages 350-367, March.
    4. Blackorby, Charles & Russell, R Robert, 1989. "Will the Real Elasticity of Substitution Please Stand Up? (A Comparison of the Allen/Uzawa and Morishima Elasticities)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 882-888, September.
    5. Badi H. Baltagi, 2021. "Seemingly Unrelated Regressions with Error Components," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, in: Econometric Analysis of Panel Data, edition 6, chapter 0, pages 149-155, Springer.
    6. Kira R. Fabrizio & Nancy L. Rose & Catherine D. Wolfram, 2007. "Do Markets Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on US Electric Generation Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1250-1277, September.
    7. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias, 2000. "Evaluation methods for non-experimental data," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 427-468, January.
    8. Curtis Carlson & Dallas Burtraw & Maureen Cropper & Karen L. Palmer, 2000. "Sulfur Dioxide Control by Electric Utilities: What Are the Gains from Trade?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1292-1326, December.
    9. Gollop, Frank M & Roberts, Mark J, 1983. "Environmental Regulations and Productivity Growth: The Case of Fossil-Fueled Electric Power Generation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 654-674, August.
    10. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika & Ueno, Takahiro, 2010. "Performance analysis of US coal-fired power plants by measuring three DEA efficiencies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1675-1688, April.
    11. Hazilla, Michael & Kopp, Raymond J, 1986. "Systematic Effects of Capital Service Price Definition on Perceptions of Input Substitution," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(2), pages 209-224, April.
    12. Ryan, David L. & Wales, Terence J., 2000. "Imposing local concavity in the translog and generalized Leontief cost functions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 253-260, June.
    13. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1973. "Transcendental Logarithmic Production Frontiers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(1), pages 28-45, February.
    14. Fare, Rolf & Logan, James, 1986. "Regulation, Scale and Productivity: A Comment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(3), pages 777-781, October.
    15. Atkinson, Scott E & Halvorsen, Robert, 1980. "A Test of Relative and Absolute Price Efficiency in Regulated Utilities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(1), pages 81-88, February.
    16. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2012. "Returns to Scale, Damages to Scale, Marginal Rate of Transformation and Rate of Substitution in DEA Environmental Assessment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 905-917.
    17. Gollop, Frank M & Karlson, Stephen H, 1978. "The Impact of the Fuel Adjustment Mechanism on Economic Efficiency," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(4), pages 574-584, November.
    18. Hirofumi Uzawa, 1962. "Production Functions with Constant Elasticities of Substitution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(4), pages 291-299.
    19. Nelson, Randy A & Wohar, Mark E, 1983. "Regulation, Scale Economies, and Productivity in Steam-Electric Generation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 24(1), pages 57-79, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Germeshausen, Robert, 2018. "The European Union emissions trading scheme and fuel efficiency of fossil fuel power plants in Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-007, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gerald Granderson & Finn Forsund, 2014. "Rate of return regulation and the Le Chatelier principle," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 263-275, April.
    2. Gerald Granderson & Diego Prior, 2013. "Environmental externalities and regulation constrained cost productivity growth in the US electric utility industry," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 243-257, June.
    3. Gerald Granderson & C. A. Knox Lovell, 1998. "The Impact of Regulation on Input Substitution and Operating Cost," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 83-97, July.
    4. Hancevic, Pedro Ignacio, 2016. "Environmental regulation and productivity: The case of electricity generation under the CAAA-1990," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 131-143.
    5. Frédéric Reynès, 2011. "The cobb-douglas function as an approximation of other functions," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01069515, HAL.
    6. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2012. "DEA environmental assessment of coal fired power plants: Methodological comparison between radial and non-radial models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1854-1863.
    7. Fumitoshi Mizutani & Eri Nakamura, 2017. "How do governance factors affect inefficiency? Stochastic frontier analysis of public utility firms in Japan," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 44(3), pages 267-289, September.
    8. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2015. "Environmental assessment on coal-fired power plants in U.S. north-east region by DEA non-radial measurement," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 125-139.
    9. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2014. "Investment strategy for sustainable society by development of regional economies and prevention of industrial pollutions in Japanese manufacturing sectors," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 299-312.
    10. Koetse, Mark J. & de Groot, Henri L.F. & Florax, Raymond J.G.M., 2008. "Capital-energy substitution and shifts in factor demand: A meta-analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2236-2251, September.
    11. Lundmark, Robert & Olsson, Anna, 2015. "Factor substitution and procurement competition for forest resources in Sweden," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 99-109.
    12. Yazid Dissou & Reza Ghazal, 2010. "Energy Substitutability in Canadian Manufacturing Econometric Estimation with Bootstrap Confidence Intervals," The Energy Journal, , vol. 31(1), pages 121-148, January.
    13. Frédéric Reynès, 2011. "The cobb-douglas function as an approximation of other functions," Working Papers hal-01069515, HAL.
    14. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Wang, Derek, 2014. "Radial and non-radial approaches for environmental assessment by Data Envelopment Analysis: Corporate sustainability and effective investment for technology innovation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 537-551.
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09i29kgilc0 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2014. "Environmental assessment for corporate sustainability by resource utilization and technology innovation: DEA radial measurement on Japanese industrial sectors," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 295-307.
    17. Wang, Derek & Li, Shanling & Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki, 2014. "DEA environmental assessment on U.S. Industrial sectors: Investment for improvement in operational and environmental performance to attain corporate sustainability," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 254-267.
    18. Jean-Philippe Gervais & Olivier Bonroy & Steve Couture, 2008. "A province-level analysis of economies of scale in Canadian food processing," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 538-556.
    19. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan, 2015. "China's regional sustainability and diversified resource allocation: DEA environmental assessment on economic development and air pollution," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 239-256.
    20. Frédéric Reynés, 2019. "The Cobb-Douglas function as a flexible function: A new perspective on homogeneous functions through the lens of output elasticities," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03403639, HAL.
    21. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan, 2016. "Returns to damage under undesirable congestion and damages to return under desirable congestion measured by DEA environmental assessment with multiplier restriction: Economic and energy planning for s," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 288-309.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Clean Air Act; Input substitution; Fuel adjustment clause;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:40:y:2013:i:c:p:785-794. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.