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Estimating market power is often complicated by a lack of reliable marginal cost data. A number of empirical studies identify industry competition and marginal cost levels by estimating the firms' first order condition within a conjectural variations framework. Few studies, however, have analyzed the accuracy of this technique. In this paper, we use direct measures of marginal cost for the California electricity market to measure the extent to which estimated mark-ups and marginal costs are biased. Our results suggest that the technique poorly estimates mark-ups and the sensitivity of marginal cost to cost shifters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a set of best practices on how to organize empirical research drawn from our experience. We offer some ideas on organizing, processing and analyzing data efficiently with an eye towards quality control, documentation, and replicability. Although these best practices are by no means unique, they have served us and colleagues well over the years. We hope they will be helpful to students and young economists in their research endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Increasing private sector involvement in transportation services has significant implications for the management of road networks. This paper examines a concession model’s effects on a road network in the mid-sized city of Fresno, California. Using the existing transportation planning models of Fresno, we examine the effects of privatization on a number of typical system performance measures including total travel time and vehicle miles traveled (VMT), the possibility of including arterials, and the differences between social cost prices and profit maximizing prices. Some interesting insights emerge from our analysis: (1) roads cannot be considered as isolated elements in a concession model for a road network; (2) roads can function as complements at some levels of demand and become substitutes at other levels; (3) policy makers/officials should consider privatizing/pricing arterials along with privatizing highways; (4) temporally flexible but limited price schedule regulations should be part of leasing agreements; and (5) non-restricted pricing may actually worsen system performance, while limited pricing can raise enormous profits as well as improve system performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The authors report on the errors in the 2016 and 2018 analyses by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regarding the cost benefits of fuel economy standards for vehicles. They mention the omission of used cars in the reports, the costs of compliance, and the possibility of emissions trading to avoid a rollback of standards.

As the world moves away from fossil fuels, there is growing recognition of the need for a just transition of those working in carbon-intensive industries and for policy to support this transition. While recent policies such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have begun to incorporate support for energy-intensive regions, little work has thoroughly investigated which communities are most vulnerable to economic disruption in the energy transition and therefore require policy support. This paper analyzes the distribution of employment vulnerability in the U.S. by calculating the average "employment carbon footprint" of close-to every job in the U.S. economy at high geographic and sectoral granularity. The measure considers employment vulnerability across the entire economy and captures both fossil fuel consumption and production effects, with the sectors covered in our analysis accounting for 86% of total U.S. employment and 94% of U.S. carbon emissions outside of the transportation sector. We find that existing efforts to identify at-risk communities both in the literature and the IRA exclude regions of high employment vulnerability, and thereby risk leaving these communities behind in the energy transition. This work underscores the importance of proactive and continuous measures of employment vulnerability, presents policymakers with much-needed data to incorporate such measures into just transition policy and makes the case for place-based policy approaches when considering how best to support communities through the energy transition., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.