Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies
It provides a broad introduction to global markets for crude oil and refined petroleum products, natural gas, and electric power. A major goal of the course is to help students understand how market design, market institutions, and regulatory structures affect firm-level decision-making in the energy industries and ultimately, how these decisions affect the functioning of energy markets and the prospects for alternative technologies.
The course will include examples of cost-benefit, organizational, and institutional analyses of energy production, transformation, and use as well as public policy choices affecting distribution and consumption. More specific topics include the role of markets and prices, financial analysis of new energy-related technologies; institutional path dependence; economic and political determinants of government regulation; the impact of regulation on decisions and feedback into the political/regulatory/energy system. Examples will be drawn from various countries and settings.
Course Objectives:
- communicate some facts about global energy industries and energy policy;
- use a set of standard quantitative tools used in decision-making in the energy industries;
- explain how emerging regulations may change industry decision-making;
- describe how modern markets for energy commodities are structured;
- describe how existing and emerging environmental concerns and policies will impact these markets;
- evaluate the profitability of new projects or technologies in the context of these markets and regulations;
- develop basic financial statements for energy projects.