Papers

Publications in peer-reviewed journals

Working papers

Job Market Papers

I study the adoption of renewable technologies to mitigate climate change in a dynamic public good coordination game. Because dynamic coordination games typically have multiple equilibria, I use a global games approach to inform equilibrium selection. My first contribution is to show that the celebrated result on equilibrium selection in one-shot games generalizes to dynamic global games with both static and dynamic strategic complementarities. The unique equilibrium is determined by fundamentals of the renewable technology, not sunspots, and technological lock-in can occur. Coordination on fossil fuels may be rational even when that is inefficient and all agents would prefer to coordinate on renewables instead. Motivated by the latter observation, my second contribution is to design a policy of network subsidies. A network subsidy allows the policymaker to correct the externality deriving from technological spillovers (and all externalities if use of the clean technology is an equilibrium of the underlying coordination game) but does not, in equilibrium, cost anything. To protect the policymaker against off-equilibrium behavior, I also design a network tax-subsidy scheme that is entirely self-financed, implying zero net spending on network subsidies whatever the technologies chosen.
2022
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I study cap and trade schemes where feedback mechanisms from the market for allowances determine, at least in part, the cap on emissions and where the scheme ends with a hard ban on emissions. The effect of bringing forward te ban depends on the supply mechanism in place: under a price mechanism (supply increasing in the allowance price) the reduction in equilibrium emissions from an earlier ban is positive and bounded from below, whereas it is bounded from above and possibly negative under a quantity mechanism (supply decreasing in the surplus of unused allowances). I characterize these bounds and provide conditions under which they coincide. I also identify sufficient conditions for which an earlier ban leads to strictly higher emissions under a quantity mechanism.
2022
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Publications

Carbon prices in the EU ETS have risen from around 5 euro per ton of CO2 in 2017 to above 90 euro in 2021. One probable explanation is the cancellation mechanism implemented along with the Market Stability Reserve (MSR) of the EU ETS in 2018. We identify realistic conditions under which the MSR results in truly massive cancellation of emissions allowances, pointing to the steepness of the emissions pathway over time as essential. A flattening of the emissions pathway implies huge reduction in cumulative emissions, suggesting much higher ETS prices. The concerns about too low and `ineffective’ carbon prices may turn into concerns for too high prices. The results have important ramifications for planned revisions of the EU ETS.
Environmental Research Letters (forthcoming), 2022
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The Market Stability Reserve (MSR), implemented in 2018 to complement the EU emission trading system (EU ETS), is designed such that the supply of allowances responds endogenously to demand. We show that an endogenous cap such as the MSR produces a Green Paradox. Abatement policies announced early but realized in the future are counter-effective because of the MSR: they increase cumulative emissions. We present the mechanisms in a two-period model, and then provide quantitative evidence of our result for an annual model disciplined on the price rise in the EU ETS that followed the introduction of the MSR. Our results point to the need for better coordination between different policies, such as the European Green Deal. We conclude with suggestions to improve the workings of an endogenous cap, ahead of the MSR review scheduled for 2021.
Economic Policy, 2021
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We compare the decrease in European energy demand and CO2 emissions during the financial crisis 2008-2009 with the COVID-19 expected drop in demandand emissions, and the price response of the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS). We ask whether the rather limited current price reduction may be due tothe Market Stability Reserve (MSR), implemented in the EU ETS between thetwo crisis. Stylized facts and basic theory are complemented with simulations based on a model of the EU ETS. Together, they suggest a mixed result. The MSR stabilizes the EU ETS price in turbulent times, but less than perfectly. We show that the more persistent the COVID-19 shock is, the less the MSR is able to serve its purpose.
Environmental and Resource Economics, 2020
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By manipulating EU ETS through the Buy, Bank, Burn program, unregulated emissions are compensated while a substantial part of the burden is levied on regulated sectors. This distorts the balance between regulated firms and non-regulated projects, allowing climate-conscious consumers to be virtuous at the cost of others.
Nature Climate Change, 2019
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Working papers

We develop a dynamic regulation game for a stock externality under asymmetric information and future market uncertainty. Within this framework, regulation is characterized as the implementation of a welfare-maximization program conditional on informational constraints. We identify the most general executable such programs and find these yield simple and intuitive policy rules. We apply our theory to carbon dioxide emissions trading schemes and find substantial welfare gains are possible, compared to current practices.
Submitted, 2020
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Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of cap-and-trade schemes to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. With many independently operating systems, policy discussions have turned to the topic of linking. This paper offers a theory of optimal linking. We show that an efficient linkage adjusts the joint cap in response to inter-scheme trades of allowances. Compared to standard linking, our proposal has two major advantages. First, it increases global welfare by efficiently adjusting the cap in response to private information implicitly contained in inter-scheme trades. Second, post-linking price volatility is lower with an endogenous cap. The latter advantage may alleviate existing political barriers to linking such as imported price volatility. A key concept in our analysis is asymmetric uncertainty. Interestingly, while asymmetric information generally decreases welfare, asymmetric uncertainty compensates for part (or, in extreme cases, all) of that welfare loss.
2020
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We study disease control in a game of imperfect information. While disease control games of perfect information tend to have multiple equilibria, we show that even a small amount of uncertainty leads to equilibrium uniqueness. In equilibrium, an epidemic may occur even though it is inefficient and could have been avoided. Moreover, less harmful diseases may cause more deaths. We extend the game to study cooperation and let a subset of players commit to control the disease whenever the expected benefit of doing so is sufficiently high. The equilibrium is again unique. Selection of a more favorable equilibrium is facilitated by this type of cooperation.
2020
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Global games are incomplete information games where players receive private noisy signals about the true game played. In a sequential global game, the set of players is partitioned into subsets. Players within a subset (of the partition) play simultaneously but no two subsets move at the same time. The resulting sequence of stages introduces intricate dynamics not encountered in static global games. We show that a sequential global game with strategic complementarities and binary actions has at least one equilibrium in monotone strategies. When signals are sufficiently precise, the sequential global game has a unique equilibrium satisfying iterated dominance, forward induction, and backward induction, even if the complete information game (given the partition of the player set) has multiple equilibria. Several applications are discussed.
2020

CV

For a copy of my CV, click here.

Other

Economics Statistische Berichten, 2021
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Economics Statistische Berichten, 2021
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Economics Statistische Berichten, 2019
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Book chapter, Routledge, 2019

EAERE Magazine, 2018
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In Dutch. Report written on request of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality regarding the question how – i.e. using which mechanism – the rights to build windmill parks on the North Sea are best allocated.
Government report, 2018
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Teaching

  • Lecturer Mathematics for Economists (PhD, 2022)
  • Lecturer Management of Biological Resources (Graduate, 2021)
  • Thesis supervision (Graduate and undergraduate, 2018–)
  • TA Grondslagen Macro-economie (Undergraduate, 2016 - 2020)
  • TA Macroeconomics for EOR (Undergraduate, 2017 - 2018)
  • TA Economics for Social Sciences (Undergraduate, 2018 - 2019)
  • TA Microeconomics 2, Game Theory (Research Master, 2019 - 2020)
  • TA Environmental Economics (Undergraduate, 2020)

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