Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:50:40am WEST
External resources will be made available 30 min before a session starts. You may have to reload the page to access the resources.
|
Daily Overview |
| Session | |
|
Climate Policy, Innovation and Growth Location: B127 Session Chair: Julien Dubois, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris | |
    | |
Phasing Out Fossil Fuels: A Theory to Disentangle Transition Forces Crest, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France Can growth and emissions be decoupled, and if so, through which mechanism? This paper develops a framework in which three forces drive the energy transition: (i)~capital installation, where investment in cleaner vintages reduces emission intensity; (ii)~Directed Disembodied Technical Change (DDTC), where R\&D shifts the production frontier; and (iii)~post-installation adjustment, where already-installed capital adapts its emission intensity over time. The third force is typically omitted from the literature, which treats capital as either fully rigid or fully flexible after installation. I capture it through a parameter $\theta\in[0,1]$ measuring the intensity of post-installation adjustment frictions. Studying the decentralized economy, I show that the transition is shaped by three market failures. Each requires its own instrument: a monopoly markup on R\&D intermediates, an intertemporal knowledge spillover, and a novel \emph{Scrapping Delay Effect} (SDE), by which directed innovation endogenously delays the scrapping of emission-intensive vintages. A scrapping subsidy $\sigma_t$ is necessary to correct the SDE; no direction subsidy can replace it, and it vanishes in the putty-putty limit. Quantitatively, Bayesian estimation on U.S. data (1949--2024) shows that the assumed value of $\theta$ alone drives the estimated elasticity of substitution from near zero to near unity, illustrating how the modelling assumption determines which mechanism appears as the primary driver of the transition. | |