Research Library

Social distancing and stay-at-home measures provided scientists with a natural experiment to study social phenomena that hinge precisely on human mobility and contact — including criminal activity. A study by Center for the U.S. and Mexico experts and co-authors explores the relationship between COVID-19 and criminal activity in Mexico.

The authors examine how vertical market structures impact the way a tax affects gas prices, using data from gas station contracts with a major Spanish refiner. Find the article in The Economic Journal.

It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. Robust stakeholder engagement preceded adoption of the fourteen‐day limit and should arguably be part of efforts to reassess it, write the authors.

The ORDC has been proposed in some markets to solve the missing-money problem. The authors estimate the extent to which ORDC prices are negatively affected by wind generation, using hourly data from ERCOT between Jan. 2015 and Feb. 2019. The authors conclude that if wind penetration increases, ORDC may not be a good idea.

The authors' combined statistical and economic models on specific aspects and properties of biochar will be useful for future field experiment proposals, farmers purchasing biochar, and decision-makers working to incentivize agricultural advances. In GCB-Bioenergy, October 8, 2020, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcbb.12765

The authors examine the role that government policy can play in accelerating production and use of biochar at commercial scale, such as providing commercial financial incentives, nonfinancial policy support and research and development funding. The article also includes broad recommendations for the development of policy that maximizes the net benefits of biochar adoption.

The connection between Texas H.B. 810, which allows clinics to provide investigational stem cell treatments to certain patients, and a deregulation movement to increase patient access to unproven stem cell treatments is described in this report.

Regional air quality and health cost models are used to assess how reductions in soil nitric oxide (NO) emissions from the use of biochar could influence U.S. air quality and health costs.

Scholar Raúl Bajo Buenestado examines the consumer welfare consequences of introducing capacity payments in the electricity sector, finding that capacity payments reduce price volatility and increase the reliability of the system but also cause consumers’ electricity bills to rise.

Though consumers generally pay higher electricity prices in areas with capacity markets, those markets also serve as an insurance mechanism to incentivize capacity additions and reduce the probability of extreme events. Graduate fellow Raúl Bajo Buenestado analyzes the implications of capacity markets for consumers in liberalized energy sectors.