Research

Browse all of Michael Greenstone’s research papers, or filter them by a topic. Links to the published or working papers, data, code, and appendices with additional results are available for selected manuscripts. Abstracts for papers are available by clicking the ‘+’ next to the paper title.
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Climate Change and Social Cost of Carbon 21
Energy and Environment in Developing Countries 27
Costs and Benefits of Environmental Quality in the U.S. 17
Energy Supply and Demand in the U.S. 8
Value of a Statistical Life 4
Financial Markets 5
Moving Toward Evidence-Based Policymaking 5
Other 15
Working Papers
Measuring the Welfare Effects of Residential Energy Efficiency Programs

We use a randomized experiment and a structural model to evaluate two home energy retrofit programs, which subsidized energy efficiency investments such as new insulation and heating systems. Two empirical findings drive the welfare analysis. First, the average energy savings were only 68 percent of the predictions provided to participants. Second, the programs’ subsidies were not closely aligned with environmental externality reductions. In our model, the inflated savings predictions and misaligned subsidies mean that the programs reduced total surplus, but with correct savings predictions, a program that aligns subsidies with externality reductions would generate positive social returns. Energy efficiency programs deliver much smaller gains than Pigouvian energy taxes, both because few households participate in the programs and because program participants still consume too much energy when energy prices are below social marginal cost.

April 2024

With Hunt Allcott
Published Papers
The Local Economic and Welfare Consequences of Hydraulic Fracturing

Exploiting geological variation and timing in the initiation of hydraulic fracturing, we find that fracking leads to sharp increases in oil and gas recovery and improvements in a wide set of economic indicators. There is also evidence of deterioration in local amenities, which may include increases in crime, noise, and traffic and declines in health. Using a Rosen-Roback-style spatial equilibrium model to infer the net welfare impacts, we estimate that willingness-to-pay (WTP) for allowing fracking equals about $2,500 per household annually (4.9 percent of household income), although WTP is heterogeneous, ranging from more than $10,000 to roughly 0 across 10 shale regions.

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2019, 11 (4): 105–155.

With Alexander W. Bartik, Janet Currie, and Christopher R. Knittel
Do Energy Efficiency Investments Deliver? Evidence from the Weatherization Assistance Program

A growing number of policies and programs aim to increase investment in energy efficiency, because conventional wisdom suggests that people fail to take up these investments even though they have positive private returns and generate environmental benefits. Many explanations for this energy efficiency gap have been put forward but there has been surprisingly little field testing of whether the conventional wisdom is correct. This article reports on the results of an experimental evaluation of the nation’s largest residential energy efficiency program – the Weatherization Assistance Program – conducted on a sample of approximately 30,000 households in Michigan. The findings suggest that the upfront investment costs are about twice the actual energy savings. Further, the model-projected savings are more than three times the actual savings. While this might be attributed to the “rebound” effect – when demand for energy end uses increases as a result of greater efficiency – the article fails to find evidence of significantly higher indoor temperatures at weatherized homes. Even when accounting for the broader societal benefits derived from emissions reductions, the costs still substantially outweigh the benefits; the average rate of return is approximately -7.8% annually.

Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2018, 133(3): 1597-1644.

With Meredith Fowlie and Catherine Wolfram
Reforming the U.S. Coal Leasing Program

About 40% of all coal mined in the United States is extracted from lands owned by the federal government, under leases managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). Burning that coal accounts for 13% of U.S. energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (1). With the largest and lowest-cost reserves in the United States, federal coal alone—estimated at nearly 10% of the world’s known reserves—has potential to contribute substantially to atmospheric CO2 concentrations (2). In response to calls for reform, DOI has issued a moratorium on new leases while it develops a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to guide the first major reform of the program since 1982. We review existing knowledge of key issues relevant to reform, highlighting the social costs of coal extraction, the extent of substitution away from federal coal induced by raising additional leasing revenue, the lack of competition in the leasing auctions, and the incentives inherent in the current leasing program structure. We then turn to critical areas of research that can be done in the near term and would contribute to more informed debate and policy development.

Science, December 2016, 354(6316): 1096-1098.

With Kenneth Gillingham, James Bushnell, Meredith Fowlie, Charles Kolstad, Alan Krupnick, Adele Morris, Richard Schmalensee, and James Stock
Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?

Scientists believe significant climate change is unavoidable without a drastic reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels. However, few countries have implemented comprehensive policies that price this externality or devote serious resources to developing low-carbon energy sources. In many respects, the world is betting that we will greatly reduce the use of fossil fuels because we will run out of inexpensive fossil fuels (there will be decreases in supply) and/or technological advances will lead to the discovery of less-expensive low-carbon technologies (there will be decreases in demand). The historical record indicates that the supply of fossil fuels has consistently increased over time and that their relative price advantage over low-carbon energy sources has not declined substantially over time. Without robust efforts to correct the market failures around greenhouse gasses, relying on supply and/or demand forces to limit greenhouse gas emissions is relying heavily on hope.

Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2016, 30(1): 117-138.

With Thomas Covert and Christopher R. Knittel
Are the Non-Monetary Costs of Energy Efficiency Investments Large? Understanding Low Take-up of a Free Energy Efficiency Program

We document very low take-up of an energy efficiency program that is widely believed to be privately beneficial. Program participants receive a substantial home “weatherization” retrofit; all installation and equipment costs are covered by the program. Less than 1 percent of presumptively eligible households take up the program in the control group. This rate increased only modestly after we took extraordinary efforts to inform households—via multiple channels—about the sizable benefits and zero monetary costs. These findings are consistent with high non-monetary costs associated with program participation and/or energy efficiency investments.

American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 2015, 105(5): 201-204.

With Meredith Fowlie and Catherine Wolfram
Paying Too Much for Energy? The True Costs of Our Energy Choices

Energy consumption is critical to economic growth and quality of life. America’s energy system, however, is malfunctioning. The status quo is characterized by a tilted playing field, where energy choices are based on the visible costs that appear on utility bills and at gas pumps. This system masks the “external” costs arising from those energy choices, including shorter lives, higher health care expenses, a changing climate, and weakened national security. As a result, we pay unnecessarily high costs for energy. New “rules of the road” could level the energy playing field. Drawing from our work for The Hamilton Project, this paper offers four principles for reforming U.S. energy policies in order to increase Americans’ well-being.

Daedalus, 2012, 241(2): 10–30.

With Adam Looney
Is There an Energy Efficiency Gap?

Many analysts of the energy industry have long believed that energy efficiency offers an enormous “win-win” opportunity: through aggressive energy conservation policies, we can both save money and reduce negative externalities associated with energy use. In 1979, Daniel Yergin and the Harvard Business School Energy Project estimated that the United States could consume 30 or 40 percent less energy without reducing welfare. The central economic question around energy efficiency is whether there are investment inefficiencies that a policy could correct. First, we examine choices made by consumers and firms, testing whether they fail to make investments in energy efficiency that would increase utility or profits. Second, we focus on specific types of investment inefficiencies, testing for evidence consistent with each. Three key conclusions arise: First, the evidence presented in the long literature on the subject frequently does not meet modern standards for credibility. Second, when one tallies up the available empirical evidence from different contexts, it is difficult to substantiate claims of a pervasive Energy Efficiency Gap. Third, it is crucial that policies be targeted. Welfare gains will be larger from a policy that preferentially affects the decisions of those consumers subject to investment inefficiencies.

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2012, 26(1): 3-28.

With Hunt Allcott
Other Papers
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